City of Dreams by William Martin, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Peter Fallon leaves his beloved Boston to search for early American financial instruments with his fiancé Evangeline Carrington in her beloved New York City in City of Dreams, the fourth historical adventure in this series by William Martin.

Evangeline is in a Manhattan bookstore buying a gift for Peter when she overhears a bag lady trying to convince the store's owner, an expert in old money, to team up with her because she knows where a lot of it is. The owner, Delancey, isn't interested, but Evangeline thinks this might make a great wedding present, so she talks him into meeting the bag lady as requested. Delancey bails, but Evangeline meets her, where she's given a brass crown finial that is just a "preview". When two men accost her, she runs but drops her cell phone … which sets into motion a sequence of events that involve a secret cache of American Revolutionary War Bonds and include a Wall Street financier known as Avid Austin Arsenault, who casually asks Peter and Evangeline, via a text message (of course), "Can I interest you in saving America?"

As is typical of this series, City of Dreams is written with chapters alternating between the present and the past, the latter providing a historical backdrop to the plot in the former. There is plenty of action and intrigue then and now, but what is possibly the most interesting aspect of the book is, as Arsenault puts it, "... a new way of seeing American history: not as a string of events or inventions or political decisions, but as a series of financial investments in the future." This is definitely a unique twist on the "search for buried treasure"-style adventure, handled well and made more thrilling by the rapid pace of the plot (in both eras).

Peter and Evangeline make for an entertaining couple, and the city itself is represented as something larger than life. Despite Peter's assertion that "I am not moving to New York City,", he seems to be enjoying himself. Readers of City of Dreams will as well.

City of Dreams

A Peter Fallon Mystery by William Martin