One Night, New York

October 4, 2021
In 1932, Frances Addams, the protagonist of Thompson’s winning debut, flees a Kansas dust bowl farm for New York City, where she joins her older brother, Stan, whom she hasn’t heard from in months. Frances suspects Stan, who looks worn down, and his friend from back home, Ben, a WWI vet who makes a living as a sax player, may be involved in dangerous illegal activity—though neither one will tell her anything. When Stan ends up murdered, Frances embarks, with the help of Ben and her friend and love interest, Agnes, on a perilous quest to enact vengeance on her brother’s killer that leads her into the sordid underbelly of Prohibition-era organized crime—and to the top of the Empire State Building. Simultaneously an amateur sleuth mystery, a romance, and a coming-of-age tale, this depiction of Depression-era New York is both richly described and poignantly insightful (“His cologne was so strong she felt faint, flooded with the smell of money and good times and danger”). Deep character development, relentless pacing, and understated noir atmospherics bode well for Thompson’s next.