Lauren Willig’s historical fiction is always meticulously researched, and if she seems to demonstrate a superpower, it’s her ability to draw the readers in through her fictional characters. Her novels make reading—and learning about history—extremely enjoyable. In “The Girl from Greenwich Street,” Willig doesn’t create fictional characters—the real characters are compelling enough for her to work with. She has created a wonderful murder mystery based on a real trial in which Alexander Hamilton and his nemesis, Aaron Burr, were co-counsel.

The title character, the girl from Greenwich Street, is Elma Sands. She was born out of wedlock, and Willig makes much of Burr’s pejorative use of “bastard” when describing the girl in order to rile Hamilton, who also was born out of wedlock. Elma lived with her cousin Caty, Caty’s husband Elias, Caty’s sister Hope, and many others in the boarding house that Caty ran. We know from the prologue that Elma is planning on being married and getting away from the house where Caty is cold to her; she is treated like the poor relation that she is.

But instead of marriage, Elma ends up murdered, her body dumped in the Manhattan Well. While introducing us to the characters, Willig paints a picture of post-colonial New York. While she describes the area on Greenwich Street in detail, I found myself wishing for a map so I could more clearly visualize the spaces around the murder site. The villain is assumed to be Levi Weeks, the brother of a successful carpenter, who boarded in the house. He was a very friendly, handsome, and charming young man and was close friends with Elma. We find out that when she was sick, he cared for her and didn’t leave her side.

So it’s understandable that when Elma tells Hope that she’s going to be married, Hope concludes that it must be Levi who is her intended, thus dashing Hope’s feelings toward Levi. But as we come to find out, there’s a lot more happening than one might guess. As the attorneys on both sides question witnesses about the happenings on the day of Elma’s death and the weeks before, facts are revealed that muddy the waters.

One of the benefits of reading historical fiction is what we learn about the actual past. Here we learn about the origin of the word “lynch,” as Willig writes about Lynch law, “Charles Lynch and the men like him who took it upon themselves to enact vengeance on those they’d condemned without process of law were anathema to everything Alexander stood for.” And because of the furor over the death of Elma, and the manner in which Caty’s husband keeps her body on display for all to witness, Hamilton worries about a lynching.

In this time before police departments, constables were taxed only with keeping the peace. Lawyers did their own investigations when their clients were charged with crimes, and that was true for both the prosecution and the defense attorneys. Thus Willig makes us privy to what she imagines the investigation might have looked like as Cadwallader Colden, the assistant district attorney, and Alexander Hamilton, one of the defense lawyers, try to determine what exactly happened to Elma.

The interplay between Burr and Hamilton is fascinating, as is this glimpse into politics and life in those post-colonial times. We clearly see the results from the lack of a sewage system as the summer heat brings sickness from which those who are able can flee to the countryside.

What is also fascinating is the country that we see through Willig’s eyes, a country in some ways not unlike the America of today. America was a fractured country, as we see in the closing statement that Hamilton wrote, but which was stolen by Burr—at least according to Willig. The narrative states, “What was that but a veiled reference to the state of the country itself? A country fractured and fractious, in which Hamilton sought to position himself as the heir to General Washington, the man who could hold their fragile republic together in the face of forces seeking to break it apart.”

In the historical note at the end, Willig mentions that why Hamilton joined the defense team remains a mystery. Levi’s brother, Ezra Weeks, retained Brockholst Livingston and Aaron Burr. She says, “Brockholst had a brilliant record as a criminal defense attorney.” But Hamilton had little experience in criminal cases, and even less for murder cases. Willig offers theories about why Hamilton decided to join in the defense, and they make sense. She also shares her reasoning for the conclusions at which she arrived in writing about the trial, the murder, and the evidence she used in writing the story.

But even if you aren’t interested in historical events, read “The Girl from Greenwich Street” because you’ll come to like and respect Hope, who believes the gossip about Levi but is intelligent enough to change her mind when facts are shown to be different from what was first believed. Hope had been a bit in love with Levi and had hoped that feeling was reciprocal. We feel for Cadwallader, whose legal expertise and oratory are far inferior to those of his three opponents in the case. Alexander Hamilton’s thoughts and feelings are shared in those chapters written from his point of view, just as Willig shares Burr’s thoughts in chapters written from his point of view, both of which give us great insight into those two men.

We become immersed in the story of the people whose lives were thrown into turmoil by Elma’s death. The amount of research Willig undertook to be able to meticulously detail the events and lives of the people in the novel is staggering. And yet, at no time is the narrative stolid; the events move quickly, with actual quotes from that time prefacing each chapter. Historical fiction at its best, without a doubt.

This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.