Girl Waits with Gun by Amy Stewart
It is 1914 in Paterson, New Jersey. The Kopp sisters, Constance, Norma and
Fleurette, are headed to town in their horse and buggy when they are hit by an
automobile. Bystanders help the three
sisters, injuries to their persons and their horse is minimal, but their buggy
is going to need a great deal of repair.
Bystanders witnessed the whole event and chime in that it was the automobile
driver’s fault. Constance Kopp, the
eldest and the tallest and the strongest, detains the driver long enough to get
factory owner Henry Kaufman’s particulars.
What should be solved through simple restitution instead becomes a long
drawn out affair involving the police, the newspapers, threats, kidnapping
attempts and more.
Constance is a really interesting woman holding this family of
sisters together at a semi-rural farm after the passing of their mother. She is a strong, and strong willed person,
who is determined to make her way in the world and give her sisters a good
life. Her narrative voice is also
wonderful, all the details you need, but none of the long winded details you don’t
that tend to bog down some historical fiction.
The best part of the book?
That it happened, sort of. The
events are based on events documented in the local papers of the time and the author
references what is true and what she took liberties with in the epilogue.
Anyone looking for a witty, well crafted story, with the added bonus
that it takes place in historical New Jersey, won’t be disappointed.
