Mrs. Sherlock Holmes

   I’d never heard of Grace Humiston (later Grace Quackenbos) until this book came out. She was one of the few women lawyers in the USA, and took on a lot of cases for indigents, many of them immigrants. One of the more sensational cases was an Italian woman in New Jersey, who shot and killed her Italian boss for extorting sexual favors. The woman got a few years in jail, but it spared her the death penalty that the prosecutor wanted. Then there was an immigrant woman, committed to a mental hospital by dishonest (and racist) doctors, intent on deporting her under the law that barred the insane from entry. She was most likely bipolar and not mentally ill but the psychologists in those days weren’t exactly enlightened. The woman was deported, but it brought the problem to the public’s attention.

   Humiston also discovered a kind of slavery (not mentioned in the history books) in the south where Italians were used as forced labor. They were lured to the USA by employment agencies, then handed an exorbitant bill for their passage. They’d be kept in bondage in the swamps, and forced to work off their huge debt by armed guards. She travelled to Italy to find out more, which was dangerous at the time. Joseph Petrosino, a police lieutenant, had recently been murdered in Sicily while researching the Black Hand gang, and she, an American who spoke no Italian, put herself at extreme risk.

    Her final (and most famous case) was where a girl from a wealthy family vanished with no trace, and the last man to see her was the owner of a motorcycle business. The store was searched top-to-bottom, and the coal chutes dug empty, before Humiston uncovered the hiding place; a pit in the floor concealed by a workbench (which the top detectives had overlooked.)

    This book reminded me a lot of The Alienist, with the dark alleys, gaslit lanes, and creepy characters. The author has dug up a wealth of information that I’d never known, and I give him top credit for bringing all this to light. However, I’m not sure if today’s readers will be especially interested in Grace Humiston’s story. She’s been forgotten for years.