One of the titles I've been hearing a lot about this season is Suzanne Rindell's debut, The Other Typist.
Here's a bit about it from Rindell's own website:
Rose Baker seals men’s fates.
With a few strokes of the keys that sit before her, she can send a person away for life in prison. A typist in a New York City Police Department precinct on the lower east side, Rose is like a high priestess. Confessions are her job. The criminals admit to their transgressions, and Rose records their crimes. It is 1923, and while she may hear every detail about shootings, knifings, and murders, as soon as she leaves the interrogation room she is once again the weaker sex, best suited for filing and making coffee.
It is a new era for women, and New York City is a confusing time for Rose. Gone are the Victorian standards of what is acceptable. All around her women bob their hair short like men, they smoke, they go to speakeasies. But prudish Rose is stuck in the fading light of yesteryear, searching for the nurturing companionship that eluded her childhood and clinging to the Victorian ideal of sisterhood.
When glamorous Odalie, a new girl, joins the typing pool, despite her best intentions Rose falls under Odalie’s spell. As the two women navigate between the sparkling underworld of speakeasies by night, and their work at the station by day, Rose is drawn fully into Odalie’s high stakes world. And her fascination with Odalie turns into an obsession from which she may never recover.
So far, this debut is being hailed as Hitchcock and Highsmith meets The Great Gatsby (Kirkus Reviews). I don't know about you, but this sounds to me like an absolute must have this spring!
The Other Typist is due out May 7, but I discovered that BN.com has a free e preview up right now. You can find that here if you'd like a little sample of what's to come.
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