Broadway Butterfly Author:Sara DiVello New York in the Roaring Twenties -- a riveting true-crime novel, based on one of the most notorious unsolved murders of the era, where power, politics, and secrets conspire to bury the truth. — Manhattan, 1923. Scandalous flapper Dot King is found dead in her Midtown apartment, a bottle of chloroform beside her and a fortune in jewels missing... more ». Dot’s headline-making murder grips the city. It also draws a clutch of lovers, parasites, and justice seekers into one of the city’s most mesmerizing mysteries.
Among them: Daily News crime reporter Julia Harpman, chasing the story while navigating a male-dominated industry; righteous NYPD detective John D. Coughlin, struggling against city corruption; and Ella Bradford, the victim’s Harlem maid, closest confidante, and keeper of secrets. Adding fuel to the already volatile crime: a politically connected Philadelphia socialite, an Atlantic City bootlegger, Dot’s dicey gigolo lover, a sultry Broadway dancer, and a cagey sugar daddy guarding secrets of his own.
From Broadway’s glittering lights to its sordid underbelly to the machinations of the country’s most powerful men, Julia embarks on a quest for justice. What she discovers, twist after breathtaking twist, might be even more nefarious than murder.« less