Books: My Thoughts on Second Street Station (Mary Handley Mystery #1)

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Second Street Station Second Street Station by Lawrence H. Levy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the end, I did enjoy seeing Mary work through this case and kick some butt while she was at it, however, the things that bothered me about this book will stay with me for a while.

I picked up this book because I received a copy of the second book in this series for review. I do not like to series out of order so I had to read this first. I had prepared myself before starting this for it's view on women due to the time in history where this story takes place. I hadn't prepared myself for it's statements regarding Chinese immigrant workers. Granted, due to the time period, I probably should've prepared myself for all aspects, but I didn't and those parts of this story bothered me a lot. It makes you wonder how the author comes up with such hateful phrases. I understand this is a work of fiction, but I have to wonder if he heard something like what he has written from someone else in his life, did he make it up himself, or is it how he actually feels? Also, there is a derogatory name for a Chinese person used in this book which shocked and disgusted me. Having the Chinese character's storyline in this book is merely a way to explain how Mary learned jujitsu, I feel. The narratives were uncalled for and unnecessary in my opinion because the story would've been fine without the mention of those characters. In fact, I probably would've rated this higher if those sections had been excluded.

Mary is a great character. I really enjoyed seeing how she dealt with situations and the work place bullying she faced. The mystery was interesting also and I did enjoy seeing other historical figures pop up in this story, though their portrayal was not very nice. This book does portray drug use by several of the characters also. Overall, I did enjoy the parts that didn't have to do with the Chinese people, but the sections of this book that bothered me will stay with me for a while. I will be reading the next book since I did receive it for review, but I will need to distance myself from it for a bit first.

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