Third book in Mary Handley mystery series explores Coney Island of old

Brooklyn BookBeat

January 4, 2018 By Natasha Soto Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Lawrence H. Levy. Courtesy of Penguin Random House

Share this:

Writing a mystery series set in 19th-century Brooklyn made author Lawrence H. Levy think not only about his own Brooklyn origins, but the myriad ways in which Brooklyn has changed, or not, since then.

The latest instalment of his series “The Last Stop in Brooklyn” refers to Coney Island, because the last stop of the train was — and is — the last stop on the train. It was also the location where his parents shared a memorable double date before they were married, and was where they often took him to play as a child, “I loved going there, probably just as much as kids today love going to Disney Land,” he writes. Levy himself spent his early childhood on Ocean Parkway in the Kensington area of Brooklyn, where all he had to do was venture outside to find many playmates.

While Coney Island for Levy represented good clean American fun, the book’s protagonist, Mary Handley, is drawn to Coney Island to solve the mystery of a string of grisly murders being committed there. During her investigation, she learns about a prostitute who was brutally murdered by a Jack the Ripper copycat. An innocent man, Ameer Ben Ali, is behind bars because of the crime. Meanwhile, the true killer remains at large. As Handley delves deeper into the murder and exposes corruption within the city’s elite, she clashes with he head of the Detective Bureau, who imprisoned Ali in the first place. The stakes skyrocket as Handley discovers that this case is eerily similar to a string of other killings. She must use all her wits to discover the truth before the next murder.

Mary’s case was inspired by the real-life racially charged story of an Algerian man who was quickly and falsely convicted of a horrible murder. Levy uncovered similarly xenophobic details in his research. “My research took me to Coney Island, which was a resort back then, as well as an amusement park. Jews and African Americans were banned from hotels and bathing house. There were disgusting attractions in the midway like ‘Kill the Coon.’ Let’s just say I learned a lot about the borough in which I was born. My first reaction to these awful events was, ‘Not in my Brooklyn. Not in my New York.’ Hopefully we learn from our history sooner than our past has suggested,” Levy writes.

“Last Stop in Brooklyn” will be released on Jan. 9.