In the tradition of Rebecca and the more recent The Alienist, Scarlet Women evokes the raffish depths beneath the prim Victorian facade of New York City in the 1870's, generating a powerful story of delicious sin and corruption and sudden death, told with impeccable authenticity of place and personage and ambience.

Here are assorted rogues, ladies of convenience, a double-murder featuring a private investigator named Harp, himself on close terms with the likes of Jim Fisk, Jay Gould and Emma Wells, proprietress of a preeminent "parlor house." Also on hand, and functional to the narrative, are such historical characters as the feminist Victoria Woodhall ("I have an inalienable, constitutional and natural right to love whom I may"), as well as her sister Tennessee (Tennie), a practitioner in spiritualism.

Taken together, here is an assortment of late nineteenth century American guys and dolls who evoke a life at once entrancing and dangerous. They will not soon be forgotten.