The Bradys' Chinese Clew; Or, The Secret Dens of Pell Street

New York's Chinatown, 1903. A thunderstorm batters Pell Street as two detectives wait in the opium-haze shadows for a contact who may never arrive. Old King Brady and his partner Young King Brady have taken on a case that spirals from a missing woman into something far darker: secret underground lairs, a vanished fortune in hidden pension funds, and a Chinese society whose secrets could get them killed. Ed Butler arrives with a desperate plea his sister has eloped with a Chinese man and stolen crucial family papers but before the Bradys can act, he vanishes into a trapdoor leading to a labyrinth beneath the streets. What follows is a pulse-pounding chase through secret dens, double-crosses from both the Chinese community and outside forces, and a treasure worth killing for. Doughty writes with the breakneck pace of early pulp, dropping readers into a world of hatchet men, forbidden societies, and Victorian-era danger that feels utterly alien and utterly compelling. For readers who want their mysteries with period atmosphere to spare.