I don't understand why then the author created such unbelieveable characters and circumstances. The dirt, smells, and sounds of old NYC seem to have been deeply researched: Barnum's entertainment, the city sewers, the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, the early gangs. And then when the heroine Beatrice begins 'transmitting so subtly that none of them even realized she was doing it' I began to wonder if I was reading science fiction. The scene in which the Whyos and WhyNots 'began their work, each one trasmitting his or her message to a specific jury member via signals that were barely audible, barely even distinguishable from their breath' was just too much to believe. I really had difficulty buying into the idea of a gang communicating through singing, humming, or whatever they called it. However, it's not Paradise Alley or Dreamland. I loved Paradise Alley and Dreamland, so this seemed to fall in place especially after reading some of the editorial reviews. I'm a fan of historical fiction set in New York. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. Click ‘Customise Cookies’ to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. If you agree, we’ll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements. We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice.

Metropolis by elizabeth gaffney