Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of New York City: Radha Vatsal, No. 10 Doyers Street and Mariah Fredericks, The Wharton Plot

Archana Morley knows what it's like to be an outsider. As a woman journalist from India making her way through the cutthroat world of tabloid newspapers, she's always on the lookout for untold stories.

In the aftermath of a bloody shooting in Chinatown, Archana finds her most challenging subject - the dreaded gangster Mock Duck. But she realizes that things are not as they seem when the mayor declares Chinatown must be demolished, and the authorities raid Mock's home and tear apart his family. She embarks on a quest for the truth that leads her from gritty alleys to the back-room politics of City Hall and beyond.

Inspired by real events, No. 10 Doyers Street is a gripping novel of New York City on the cusp of modernity, as seen through a unique immigrant perspective. 

Mariah Fredericks' mesmerizing new novel follows renowned novelist Edith Wharton in the twilight years of the Gilded Age in New York as she tracks a killer. In 1911, Wharton, almost equally famed for her novels and her sharp tongue, is bone-tired of Manhattan. Finding herself at a crossroads with both her marriage and her writing, she makes the decision to leave America, her publisher, and her loveless marriage.

And then, dashing novelist David Graham Phillips—a writer with often notorious ideas about society and women’s place in it—is shot to death outside the Princeton Club. Edith herself met the man only once, when the two formed a mutual distaste over tea in the Palm Garden of the Belmont hotel. When Phillips is killed, Edith's life takes another turn. His sister is convinced Graham was killed by someone determined to stop the publication of his next book, which promised to uncover secrets that powerful people would rather stayed hidden. Though unconvinced, Edith is curious. What kind of book could push someone to kill?

Inspired by a true story, The Wharton Plot follows Edith Wharton through the fading years of the Gilded Age in a city she once loved so well, telling a taut tale of fame, love, and murder, as she becomes obsessed with solving a crime.

Radha Vatsal is also the author of the acclaimed Kitty Weeks mystery novels, set in World War I-era New York. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, she earned her Ph.D. in Film History from Duke University and has worked as a film curator, political speechwriter, and freelance journalist. She is a 2024-25 Fellow at the CUNY Writers’ Institute. She lives in New York City.

Mariah Fredericks was born, raised, and still lives in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series as well as The Lindbergh Nanny, which Nelson DeMille called "a masterful blending of fact and fiction that is as compelling as it is entertaining." The Wharton Plot was named one of the best mysteries of 2024 by Library Journal. The Wall Street Journal says "An Edith Wharton scholar could read Ms. Fredericks' novel with profit and amusement."