Kensington
Published January 27, 2026
Reviewed by Barbara Fister
Harriet Morrow has a new case to investigate in this historical mystery set in 1898. A muckraking journalist investigating political corruption was murdered in a tenement building on Chicago’s South Side. As the only woman operative for the Prescott Agency, Harriet is better positioned than her male colleagues to infiltrate the squalid building where impoverished immigrants live a hardscrabble existence. But first, she has to ditch the men’s clothing she prefers to wear as she rides through the city on her bicycle. Not only will it make her task harder, her boss explains, it’s actually illegal thanks to a city ordinance.
Harriet needs the work, and enjoys proving herself to her skeptical office mates. Though she’s in her early twenties, she’s the sole provider for her young brother after their parents’ deaths. As she throws herself into the case, she patiently befriends wary immigrant women who are reluctant to get involved in police business. One of them was arrested for the murder despite little evidence, simply to close the case. To cultivate leads, she also volunteers at a settlement house founded by a progressive woman to help the Windy City’s new residents. And she find herself visiting a German-American Turners hall, a gym where she gets fencing lessons from a mysterious woman and where a secret meeting of anarchists is held on an upper floor.
In the second of the series following The Case of the Missing Maid (2024), Osler has woven an eventful plot around a young lesbian Chicagoan trying to establish herself as a detective in a world that is hostile to people like her. He brings into the story a number of threads from the Progressive Era, including pervasive corruption and journalists’ attempts to hold the powerful accountable. Though the author could have done more to integrate the reporter’s muckraking work into the plot, the grimness of life for immigrant women in the tenements is vividly portrayed. Fans of historical mysteries are likely to enjoy this series.