Book Review for The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks

 

The Girl in the Green Dress by Mariah Fredericks

Published:  September 2, 2025 by Minotaur Books

Genre:  Historical Fiction

Taken from Goodreads:  From the author of The Lindbergh Nanny comes an evocative mystery about the 1920 murder of the gambler Joseph Elwell, featuring New Yorker writer Morris Markey and Zelda Fitzgerald.

At the dawn of the Jazz Age, Morris Markey arrives in New York to become a writer. Having served in France, he needs to be in a place so distracting he cannot hear himself think. New in town, Markey hovers at the edge of the city’s revels, unable to hear the secrets that might give him his first Big Story. Finally one night he spots Joseph Elwell, a man about town known for courting wealthy married women, with a glorious girl in a dress of silver and dollar green.

The next morning, Elwell’s housekeeper runs out into the street screaming that Elwell has been shot. Every door and window in the house is locked. Did the ravishing woman kill her paramour? At last, Morris Markey has his story.

To penetrate the glittering world of Joseph Elwell, Markey turns to the newly famous Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who met Elwell the same fateful night he night. Bored while Scott is working on his next novel, Zelda offers to help Markey with his investigation.

Together, Markey and Zelda learn that there were many people in Elwell's life who had reason to want him dead. And when a second man is found shot in his home in a very similar way, Markey begins to suspect that the truth may be more complicated—a story so dangerous that after he finishes it three decades later, he himself is found dead in his home, a single bullet through his head.

Mariah Fredericks's third standalone novel based on a true story from New York City's glamorous past, The Girl in the Green Dress is a truly standout historical mystery.

My Thoughts:  The Girl in the Green Dress is a wonderful historical fiction book.  Markey just wants to be an accomplished newspaper writer; he wants his story.  He got his story right in his own neighborhood.   Watching Markey follow the clues, meet famous people, attend premier events, and figure out what the story really is kept me guessing who the real killer is.

I love that this book is set in New York 1920’s.  I am really trying to read more books set in the United States.   The Women in the Green Dress is full of the rich living their best lives.  A murder needs to be solved.  Morris Markey finds the story that puts him in the public eye.   I enjoyed the parties he attended and the people he meets, they screamed wealth and privilege.  It is a world that Morris Markey was not born into but he managed to fit into. 

Thank you Minotaur Books for a copy of the book via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

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Meet the Author:  Mariah Fredericks was born, raised, and still lives in New York City. She graduated from Vassar College with a degree in history. She is the author of the Jane Prescott mystery series as well as The Lindbergh Nanny, which Nelson DeMille called, "a masterful blending of fact and fiction that is as compelling as it is entertaining." The Wharton Plot, was named one of the best mysteries of 2024 by Library Journal. "An Edith Wharton scholar could read Ms. Frederick’s novel with profit and amusement."—Wall Street Journal. Her next novel, The Girl in the Green Dress, featuring Zelda Fitzgerald and New Yorker writer Morris Markey, is out September 2, 2025.