Author L.A. Chandlar continues her Art Deco Mystery series with her second book, The Gold Pawn. As readers of the first book, The Silver Gun, know, the protagonist is the spunky and independent Lane Sanders, who works for a famous mayor in 1936 New York City. When Lane was a child, she saw her parents murdered and spent years dealing with trauma and questions about who did it and why. Some questions were answered in the first book, and now The Gold Pawn takes the story further.
Lane’s new mystery begins with the disappearance of a banker, who also happens to be a friend of her boss, mayor Fiorello La Guardia, aka Fio. When she investigates, she soon realizes this case may be linked to her own mysterious past, which leads Lane back to her childhood home in Michigan to look for clues about her parents’ lives. It’s a task made all the more difficult by her bittersweet memories of the place she’d once called home. Around this time, a new memory surfaces from her childhood of a mysterious gold pawn. She doesn’t yet know what it means, but when criminals begin to target her, looking for something, it’s clear she’s in danger.
Fortunately, Lane has a loyal makeshift family to help: her Aunt Evelyn, her lover Finn, the bombastic but goodhearted Fio, streetwise Morgan, and a wide variety of friends and contacts throughout New York and Michigan. Lane and her loved ones get into scrape after scrape, with action-packed scenes involving kidnappings, shoot-outs, and intricate disguises. As more pieces start fitting together, Lane comes closer to finding out what happened to the missing banker, about the threats against her life, about the gold pawn, and who killed her parents all those years ago.
L.A. Chandlar’s novel is rich in historical detail, from what books and cars were available to the types of chocolates that were popular. The idea of good coming out of the ashes of destruction is a crucial theme in the book, as the author highlights her characters’ struggle to create art, hope, and better lives during the Great Depression. Yet despite the period setting, she infuses The Gold Pawn with a modern sensibility. Her characters are humorous and open with each other despite their differing social stations, and Lane is fiercely independent.
Readers will love The Gold Pawn for its compelling plot, rich historical details, action, and mystery, as well as the likable main characters and the family unit they create for Lane. Chandlar has found a way to blend accurate historical facts with a more contemporary mind-set for a mystery that many will enjoy reading. Readers will eagerly await the next book and the chance to explore Lane’s world even further. Highly recommended.
