Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite

Gail Meath’s Hellcat, book nine in the Jax Diamond Mysteries series, is set in October 1923, when detective Jax Diamond responds to a fatal fall inside the Plaza Hotel and recovers a gold heart-shaped locket from an elevator shaft, a detail that quietly unsettles what appears to be an accident. Within days, a gang enforcer is found hanging beneath the Brooklyn Bridge, marked by lipstick and a black rose, echoing the recent death of Chicago crime boss Victor Vitali. As forensic links surface across state lines, Jax traces a pattern that suggests deliberate coordination aimed at powerful figures within organized crime. While the city braces for retaliation amid the World Series celebrations, Jax follows the trail of the locket through nightclubs and hotel corridors toward Death Row Dotty, a woman moving unseen through both cities, driven by a purpose that reaches into the highest ranks of the underworld.

Gail Meath’s Hellcat does a fantastic job of putting readers right into Prohibition-era America, with meticulous attention to period detail. We are there when Doctor Gettler compares the ballistics of a Mauser to shell casings in early twentieth-century lab science, and later when Meath brings in blasting powder used in 1923 mining operations. Jax Diamond is the protagonist who brilliantly anchors the series, and he remains perfectly equipped to draw someone back from a Manhattan rooftop or follow the trail of a Hamilton pocket watch. Jax aside, it is actually his mother, Winifred Diamond, whom I love. She's a former Pinkerton agent working undercover for the Bureau, and I would 100% read every prequel to this series to find out her story. Meath fleshes out every character, including Death Row Dotty, who is an ultra-calculating adversary. From a smoke-filled billiard hall where a Chicago crime boss convenes, to the fourteenth floor corridor of a gunfire-cracking Ritz Carlton, Meath offers a period mystery for all readers. Very highly recommended.