Tuesday, February 9, 2021

The Molly Murphy Series by Rhys Bowen

There is a specific kind of reading pleasure in spending a year, often slowly, reading through a specific series.  In 2019 I reread the Anne of Green Gables series.  I hadn't read those since I was around 12 and it was just a delight to spend time with Anne again (although, the first three and the last one are definitely the strongest).

In 2017-2018 it was the loooong Christy Miller & Forever Friends series that had such an enormous impact on my teen years.  (I think it's on it's 7th series, spanning 40 books)  I have fond memories of reading some of those on my phone (even though I own the paper copies of THEM ALL) while being up early with a tiny baby Sam at the lake in the summer of 2018.  

I reread Harry Potter every 5 years although those don't span the whole year, just the fall.  I got those in this past fall too, although I'm sure it'll be sooner than 5 years before I pick them up again since Luke is already asking about them. 

I pretty meticulously plan my reading but there is still something reassuring and consistent about reading a whole series throughout a whole year.  I am never out of new books to read but it's still fun to dive into a series in the midst of all the other reading and rereading I am doing.  Particularly when it's not a new series and it's easier to pull off the shelf at the library instead of waiting in (sometimes) long hold lines.

Molly Murphy frequently popped up in my Quick Lit last year.  I read the first book in the series in the fall of 2019 and then decided to read the whole series throughout 2020.  There are 17 books and 3 novellas so that was a lot of appearances in my Quick Lits.  I learned about Molly in this post from Modern Mrs. Darcy on "20 Historical Mysteries featuring Feisty Female Protagonists".  The cover for the first Molly Murphy story, Murphy's Law that was used in that post had a picture of a woman looking at the Statue of Liberty.

You guys, you may have picked up on this, but I really like NYC.  We've visited 4 times in the past 10 years and I've read numerous books set there.  I was definitely drawn in by the cover and the summary sounded promising.  17 books was less appealing but I added the first to my TBR anyways.  

Then I got the first book off the shelf at my library.  This was the cover:

I almost put that book right back on the shelf.  It's not a good cover.  At all.  It was not appealing to me.  At all.  But I was interested in a feisty female making her way in NYC at the turn of the century so I checked it out, read it, and really enjoyed it!  (I always logged on Goodreads the updated Kindle cover even though I read every one of these full length books on paper.  Those were just more appealing covers.)

As the book starts, Molly is in Ireland and trying to escape a bad situation where she might be framed for murder (that was in self-defense/preservation).  She ends up helping a dying woman by taking this woman's ticket and escorting her two young children on the boat ride across the Atlantic to NYC where the children will be reunited with their father who has been over here working.  The conditions on the boat are TOUGH and then landing on Ellis Island and getting through immigration is a whole other set of problems.  Molly is framed for murder (again) and crosses paths with an interesting police officer.  Even once she gets off Ellis Island she still needs a place to stay and a way to make money.

Being a single female, all alone, in NYC, in 1900ish is not easy.  Not at all.  But she finds a male private detective she kinda ropes into hiring her, hoping she can pick up some tips on solving mysteries of her own.  There is nobody looking out for Molly except for Molly.  She needs income, a safe place to live, and a few friends to help watch her back.  

When I finished the first book I really liked Molly, liked her spunk and ability to think on her feet and how she wanted to make her way in the world as a single woman, where the world was not set-up for poor single women to succeed.  She puts herself in a lot of dangerous situations, has more lives than a cat, and probably would have, in real life, been killed more than once.  

Molly is quite a traveler for starting the series so poor, with different books set in Paris, Dublin, San Francisco, and the Hudson Valley, as well as many in turn of the 20th Century New York.  There is talk of the subway lines being dug (I found this FASCINATING) and women fighting for the right to vote.  Molly makes her way all over New York and I loved every mention of Central Park or Battery Park or other places I was familiar with, although 100+ years later. 

Mystery isn't a genre I am drawn to and I rarely figured out a mystery before Molly did.  She, of course, had the benefits of actually being in the situation and, importantly, being fictional.  But I still wouldn't be nearly as brave or brash or as daring as she frequently was.  Even though I have a very different temperament than Molly, I still really liked her as a character, and not just because she had red hair.  She sought to fix or at least improve every injustice she came across.  She had a strong sense of right and wrong.  She was willing to put herself out there in order to solve a crime or help a friend.  And she really wanted to see justice served.  

This time period, about 1901-1911, isn't one I've read much about even though the most prominent setting, New York City, is a place I have read about.  This made the books both educational and familiar with, what felt like, a good friend along for the ride.  I really enjoyed my year with Molly!  

For 2021, I am planning to read the Maisie Dobbs series, which was also on the list from Modern Mrs. Darcy!  It's set a bit later and mostly, I gather, in London or at least England.  I'm looking forward to another year spent reading about another spunky female!

I'd love to hear if you've ever spent a year or a period of time reading a series, reread or not!

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