The Desk from Hoboken

Author ML Condike knocks it out of the park with The Desk from Hoboken! If anyone accuses this story of being formulaic, it could only be because Condike created a new formula that works. Rarely does a book make me this excited about reading; this one does.

The premise to the story seems simple, perhaps even boring: forensic genealogist RaeJean “Rae” Hunter accepts a case to help confirm the identity of some old bones near a university campus. A student thinks they belong to Mary Rogers, whose nineteenth century death remains a mystery. Even Edgar Allan Poe tried to unravel the mystery in his short story, “The Mystery of Marie Rogêt.”

At first reluctant to accept the case, Rae notices a ladies antique secretary desk in the corner, likely from the 1800s. She liked it so much that she accepted the case in exchange for the desk. Rae had no idea what she was signing up for!

Okay, let me talk about the elephant in the book: genealogy. Unless you are really into exploring your roots, most folks would probably consider genealogy boring. Those same folks would definitely consider a book about genealogy just as boring. But boy, would they be missing out!

I went into this book “like most folks” (see above). The only thing that caught my interest was that the Mary Rogers mystery inspired Poe. I suppose I wanted to know why. But Poe wrote his story only a few years after Mary disappeared in 1841. This story takes place over 175 years after that!

“The past had a way of seeping up through the soil.”

The beginning of this book did not impress nor excite me. However, little did I realize that author ML Condike was shrewdly drawing me in. Why did the first genealogist the university hired up and quit shortly after starting? Was Rae being followed or was it her imagination? Why do the stakes seem so high?

I’m not going to spoil it for you. To answer those questions, you have to read the book. But I’ll warn you – if you read this one, you’ll likely read the next one in this new series as well! I know I will.

Technically, the book is top notch. It is quite well edited. I found absolutely no errors (except for a teeny-tiny one in the Acknowledgments). The pacing is a wee bit slow in the beginning, but once the author puts the story in gear, hang on! I definitely had a hard time putting this one down.

The description is also well done. There are a number of antiques, so the description helped my visuals quite a bit. For example, rather than just saying a pile of diaries fell onto a chair, the author wrote, “A second pile of diaries spilled over the seat of a spiral-twist-legged, Elizabethan-style chaise upholstered in Loro Piana linen.”

One other thing I wanted to mention is that the genealogy data has a lot of moving parts, so to speak. There are many, many names and relations. I heard there was a family tree available on the author’s website to help with that, but I was afraid it might contain a spoiler or two, so I avoided it. But if you think it would be helpful, go for it.

The story did not persuade me to become a forensic genealogist, but it did demonstrate how entertaining and downright exciting a story about one can be! I’m hooked!