Audenzia (Zia) De Luca is a young widow in her late twenties with a young son, Michael. Zia does the books for her father-in-law’s cheese shop and she works at the library. One of the library’s patrons asks her for help with some translation work. Zia is let go from the library because she’s Sicilian. The eugenics movement has decided that Italian people are not suited for that kind of work. She was meant to meet the patron that night, but when she gets outside the library, the man lies murdered on the pavement.
Zia tells the police all she knows and is consequently hounded by the press. The journalists even start coming into her father-in-law’s shop. Shortly after a journalist offers Zia money for an interview which Mr De Luca said no to, he is murdered by someone in the shop. Zia heard what happened, but didn’t see anything because she was in the basement of the shop.
Zia decides to investigate what happened to her father-in-law, because she thinks that the person the police have arrested is not the killer. She asks her cousin Salvatore Lucania for a job in his new nightclub/speakeasy The Orchid Hour. To get the job, Zia has to impress the actor David Da Costa who is the manager of the club. David hires Zia to help care for the orchids in the club.
Police detective Frank Hudgkins was investigating both murders but is warned off the case by his superior. The man threatens to make sure that Frank’s wife Berenice who suffers from the mysterious sleeping disease, is moved to a worse hospital in town. She’s currently staying in an upscale hospital upstate.
We learn later that Zia’s cousin Sal is the infamous gangster Lucky Luciano (Salvatore “Charles” Lucania).
I really enjoyed this book – it took me a few chapters to get hooked – but then, it just didn’t let go. I think Nancy could have written a sequel, or at least a few chapters about Zia’s life after leaving The Orchid Hour, but it was wrapped up nicely – with a bow!
Read for the ShelfReflection Reading Challenge 2025
Prompt 3: A book set during Prohibition
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
