The Wicked Redhead
by Beatriz Williams
William Morrow, 2019

Hot, and on the heels of 2017's The Wicked City, the next installment in the series from the prolific Beatriz Williams gives readers a hearty dose of Gin Kelly. Picking up nearly exactly where the first book left off, The Wicked Redhead once again splits the story between two leading ladies and would-be roommates, if only they weren't separated by time.

In 1998, Ella Dommerich seeks sanctuary from a cheating husband in a Greenwich Village apartment that the fiery Geneva Kelly (known as Ginger, or its fittingly shortened version, Gin) called home back in 1924. The previous book saw the women get acquainted, or, rather, Ella's realization that her new building may be haunted by the ghosts of roaring twenties parties past. The apartment itself still reeks of Gin.

Book two slathers more cement on the connection between Ella and Ginger, which seems to be more than a shared abode across history; Ella discovers that one of her elderly family members may have known this mysterious woman in her heyday. Intermingled with other revelations within her family sphere, Ella is on the hunt to uncover more details regarding Ginger's life and her abrupt disappearance from New York.

Meanwhile, back in 1924, Ginger Kelly is in hiding on the sunny shores of Florida after being drawn into a plot to bring down her bootlegging stepfather in the previous installment. She and her companions may have survived the brutal conclusion to that affair, but it has left scars on them all. Now self-tasked with raising her newly orphaned baby sister, Ginger begs her beloved Anson, the orchestrator of the previous mayhem, to give up his goals of being reinstated as a agent of prohibition. A recurring nightmare tells her that his return to the force will eventually be the end of the man she loves.

Though The Wicked City saw a fairly even split between the two ladies' sections, its follow-up shows a heavy bias toward the vivacious Miss Kelly. Only a few events dominate Ella's portion of this novel, and, as they are largely made up of internal struggles and quiet unraveling of family mysteries, her sections prove a stark contrast to the series of events in 1924. Making up only about a quarter of the book, Ella's contributions feel notably sparser and certainly less exciting in comparison.

The dominant portions of the book following Gin Kelly show her dealing with the consequences of not only the physical attacks from her stepfather, but also the long-reaching impacts of earlier choices, including playing with a particular man's heart. The events of the first book forced her to realize her own infallibility and although she retains her dazzling confidence in this sequel, a humbler side of Ginger emerges.

What results is a fun, if lopsided, new addition to the series. Beatriz Williams writes with the elegant breeziness of a practiced hand; the ease with which she endears her characters to readers alone makes the book praise-worthy. Ella's search not only for her familial connection to Ginger, but also for the reclamation of her own voice following her husband's heartbreaking betrayal will likely prove extremely relatable to the audience, and Ginger is finely-crafted firecracker, thrumming with life.

With such characters, it is hard not to notice the missed opportunities present in this second book. Many questions from the first book lay unanswered, their existence all noted in this installment with no hint as to whether or not they will ultimately be resolved. For instance, still lurking in the shadows is Ginger's biological father. A few more breadcrumbs are dropped on the path when Gin receives what she believes to be an unsigned letter from him. Never outright revealing his identity, his attempt at communication seems to make Ginger more uncomfortable than anything else; when asked why she wants to learn her father's identity she replies with characteristic snark, “not because I'm sentimental...only because the devil seems to know who I am, and I don't particularly enjoy the mismatch.” By the end of the book, readers, too, will likely be wondering about the dangling end to this missed connection.

One can hope that The Wicked Redhead will not be the last Wicked City novel Beatriz Williams aims to pen. The characters are downright addictive and far too enjoyable to be given up after a mere two books. Beyond that, the frustratingly unresolved storylines demand a definitive conclusion to the series. The lack of closure is bound to keep readers up at night, though such an interruption still may be preferable to the late-night clamor of a ghost speakeasy.

—Olive Fellows is a young professional and Booktuber (at http://youtube.com/c/abookolive) living in Pittsburgh.