Birth, death and everything in between - midwife Sarah Brandt has seen it all. In the tenements of New York Sarah helps out where she can. But now she ventures into an exotic land, less than a mile away. In Chinatown to deliver a baby, Sarah meets a group of women she might otherwise never have come across - Irish girls who, after alighting on Ellis Island alone, have married Chinese men in the same predicament. But faced with bigotry in New York from every side, their mixed-race children are often treated badly by the Irish, the Chinese - even the police. When the new mother's half Chinese and half Irish fifteen year old niece goes missing, Sarah knows that alerting the constables would prove futile. So, she turns to Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy and together they begin to search. And after they find the girl dead in an alley, Sarah and Malloy have ample suspects - from both sides of Canal Street.

A tale of history I knew nothing about, i.e. the intermarrying of many Irish women and Chinese men in New York. The combination of red hair and jet black hair must have produced children who looked very different and it must have been difficult for them especially with the attitudes of the day.

Mailed this to another bookcrosser as a Christmas present.

Sounds interesting, thank you and thanks for the choccy too. Yours is on its way.

Like Tanamo, I also learned a lot. I remember a Chinese laundry near where I lived. As a child I loved the smell that wafted out as I passed by.
I did work out whodunnit part way through but that didn't affect my enjoyment of it.
I would have marked higher apart from one thing...my biggest hate... One of the characters twice said "should of" instead of "should have" I'm sure they weren't using that at the time this book was set!

In a box of books sent as a RABCK

Looking forward to reading this, sounds like an original story line. Going on TBR Received with others as RABCK Thank you.