Political corruption, abortion, and dead body discovered inside a trunk at Hudson depot.

The summer of 1871 in New York City is hot and humid. The city is gripped by two seemingly separate events. The first is the discovery of a beautiful young woman’s body stuffed inside a trunk at the Hudson railway depot. The second involves Victor Fowler, grand sachem of Tammany Hall, and the “Boss” of what is popularly referred to as “The Ring.” This is a small clique that includes Governor “Dandy” Archibald Krupp, Fowler’s man at the state assembly in Albany; Mayor Thomas “The Prince” Emery, an opportunist of the worst variety; “Slimy” Bob James, the cunning and sly city comptroller; and Isaac “The Wizard” Harrison, the City Chamberlain, who is possibly the most treacherous of the “Ring Rascals.”

In Evil of the Age, New York journalist Charles St. Clair, tracking down the story of Lucy Maloney, the “kept woman” found murdered and stuffed in a trunk at the Hudson railway depot, moves from the mansions of Fifth Avenue to the brothels of SoHo to the seedy and dangerous saloons on Water Street. St. Clair soon uncovers Lucy’s connection to a ring of abortionists and to Madame Philippe, a wealthy woman who known as Madam Killer.

St. Clair confronts Madame Philippe at the Tombs prison, where she awaits the hangman’s noose for Lucy’s murder. St. Clair believes her to be innocent and sets out to prove it, discovering deceit at the highest levels of political power and the shocking secret of the “Ring Rascals.”

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