Annually in October there is a book fair in Copley Square in Boston. Because of COVID the fair did not take place, at least in real time, in 2020 and 2021. This year it was held and because it was a beautiful day the Fair was well attended and the atmosphere was festive.
The Fair includes several concurrent sessions during which authors or reviewers or publishers speak on various subjects. I attended one session during which three book reviewers and the editor of a book review section opined on issues related to being a reviewer. In a prior year I listened to three authors who had recently penned books on sports and social issues. When the panelists are authors there is typically a book selling/autographing session after the program.
In addition to the sessions, booths are set up in Copley Square itself--not far, in fact, from where the bombers took lives and limbs when trying to make some sort of irrational political point during the Boston Marathon in 2013. At the booths, various publishers of magazines and books, display their wares. This year one booth was occupied by a group called The Mystery Writers of New England. I visited it, as I visited most of the others. A woman there told me she had written a series of historical novels featuring a young woman named Emily Cabot. I asked her about the first novel in the series. It was, Death at the Fair. I bought it and read it during the first week in November.
The plot is interesting. A student, Emily Cabot, is visiting the 1893 Chicago fair. Her mother and brother travel from Boston to attend, and some friends from the South also meet up with Emily to visit the Fair. The friend from the South has brought along another friend, an acquaintance, to visit as well. Emily has been mentored and supported by a professor at the university. (If you're interested in reading the book, you might want to skip to the next paragraph as some minor details of the plot are coming. I do think I leave enough out, so that a reader could enjoy the book even with this information. The minor details:) At a gathering of all people identified, the professor is startled when he sees the acquaintance. Apparently, they had been sweethearts at one point. However, the woman married another man. That man it turned out was a tyrant and virulent racist. At one point he beat his wife, the acquaintance, and blamed the beating on a black servant. The servant was then lynched. After the initial gathering, the racist husband joins the entourage. Subsequently, he is murdered. That is the death at the Fair. The professor is accused to be the killer because, it is alleged, he is jealous since the victim married the professor's former sweetheart. Emily is certain he did not do it, and attempts to learn the identity of the killer.
This is an historical novel and several characters are real people--not the victim or Emily or professor--but others. At the Fair is Ida Wells and Ferdinand Barnett. Students of history will probably recognize the name of Wells. I'd heard of her, but could not have told anyone much about her contributions. I can now. I did not know how she met her husband, Barnett, and who he was--and perhaps this reflects inappropriate ignorance--but now I know. I'd read The Devil in White City which is also about the Chicago Fair. Now I know more about the Fair. There are real Chicago politicians, miscreants and events in this novel. One I'd heard of, others I'd not. So the book had some educational value.
However, it was not a gripping read. Some terrific sentences and paragraphs beautifully written, but overall, it could not hold my attention despite an interesting plot line. Others who like historical fiction and writing that tries to capture the language of the late 1800s might feel differently. I'll not read the other novels in the Emily Cabot series. If anyone who reads this review does, I'd be interested in your perspective.
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