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Reviewed by Java Davis for Readers' Favorite
The Gallery of Missing Husbands by Lawrence J. Epstein creates an atmosphere that can be compared to an old black-and-white, 'film noir' style movie, featuring an ethnic New York City neighborhood, tenement housing, people struggling to get by, and people with something to hide. This is where protagonist Daniel Levin lives, renting a room from a retired, elderly rabbi and his wife, in their own apartment. Daniel doesn't need to live here. He could move back to his comfortable family home, except that he hates his father and can't bear to be near him.
Daniel Levin is a lost soul searching for ... what? He's not sure what. Meanwhile, he gets a reputation for solving local mysteries. One day, he sees someone fall from the roof of a building, namely Ezra Kaufman. Mr. Kaufman is known to be a successful psychic, someone who can find men from The Gallery of Missing Husbands, which is a list of men who have disappeared. Once Daniel determines that this is a murder instead of a drunken accident, he promises Mr. Kaufman's widow and sister-in-law that he will find the killer. No one is more surprised than Daniel with the story's finale.
The mystery is now afoot, and author Lawrence Epstein weaves a cunning tale, where no one is who they appear to be, and everyone's got secrets. Dr. Epstein has been writing for years, mostly non-fiction, which I’m sure is how he could bring so much realism to this novella. He made this small, New York neighborhood come alive. The speech patterns were evocative of the period. The puzzle pieces that made up the mystery intertwined smoothly. The main characters were fully formed. In the end, I wondered if I would have made the same choices that these characters decided upon. Maybe, maybe not. Fans of old black and white movies and fans of complex mysteries will love this one.
