Williams' follow-up to The Wicked City (2017) picks up immediately where the action of its predecessor left off. In 1924, flapper Gin Kelly is in Florida with her ex-Prohibition-agent beau, Oliver Anson Marshall, on the run from authorities and bootleggers alike. Soon enough, however, they are back in New York, Anson having been reinstated to his position with suspicious haste, even as it becomes clear that someone still wishes both Anson and Gin harm. Meanwhile, in 1998, Ella Dommerich has just commenced a love affair with her musician neighbor, Hector, even as she attempts to put her odious ex-husband behind her and learn more about a certain redheaded flapper who appears in a mysterious vintage photograph. Unlike the rest of Williams' work, readers' enjoyment of this will be dependent on their familiarity with the preceding book. However, for her legion of fans, the fast-paced action, romantic intrigue, and period details will be sure to please, even if occasionally cariacaturish characterization and an overreliance on 1920s vernacular make this slightly weaker than her usual offerings.--Martha Waters Copyright 2019 Booklist

Williams' follow-up to The Wicked City (2017) continues the Prohibition-era adventures of a young woman torn between two brothers.We last saw titular redhead Geneva "Ginger" Kelly on the lam with her new boyfriend, Prohibition agent Oliver Anson, after a violent altercation with Appalachian bootleggers, including Ginger's villainous stepfather, Duke Kelly, who died in the melee. Another casualty of that violence, Oliver's younger brother, Billy, jaw shattered by Duke's brass knuckles, is now under the care of the brothers' mother, the imperious blueblood Mrs. Marshall. This novel opens as Oliver and Ginger have taken refuge in Cocoa Beach, Florida, with the Fitzwilliams, whom readers will recall from another Williams series (Cocoa Beach, 2017, etc.). In a continuing storyline from the first installment, Ella Gilbert, in 1998, is trying to sort out her love life with soul mate Hector, particularly now that she's learned she's pregnant by her soon-to-be-ex hubby, Patrick. Ella's story is still tangential to Ginger's tale despite stronger hints of linkages between the two women. Since nothing much is going on in Florida except an ominous, too-brief introduction to the armada of rum-running vessels lurking just outside coastal waters, the action (such as it is) shifts to the Marshalls' Manhattan and Southampton manses. Mrs. Marshall, aware that Ginger and Billy were once lovers, has summoned Ginger to help with Billy's recoveryby pretending to be his pregnant fiancee. Unhelpfully, Ginger's soul mate, Oliver, has gone back undercover and is oddly cold toward her. Ginger's first-person voice, that of a feisty hillbilly-turned-Manhattan flapper, is authentic enough, if a bit stilted, as if too much research had gone into imagining her argot. And Ginger's mental observations are recounted with a degree of detail that, while fulfilling its intended effect of re-creating the period and social milieu, does little to advance the story. There really is no throughline herethis novel is largely an extended anticlimax to Volume 1. After 400-plus pages, many loose ends remain, perhaps auguring a third book.A seemingly superfluous sequel. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In Williams's The Wicked City, recently divorced Ella Gilbert moves into a Greenwich Village apartment building that once housed a notorious speakeasy and discovers the story of red-haired, fast-talking flapper Geneva "Gin" Kelly, originally from Appalachia. (Ghostly music from the basement helped Ella find Gin.) Their intertwined stories continue here, as Ella seeks to pull further away from her ex, finding love with Hector, the musician upstairs, and Gin is separated from the Prohibition agent with whom she has fallen in love. With a 50,000-copy paperback and 25,000-copy hardcover first printing.