Kate Quinn is a masterful writer of historical fiction. While this is only my second encounter with her books, the first being The Diamond Eye, to my reading they both merited four stars. I especially liked this story because of the way the story was told, the characters were interesting, the incorporation of history was seamless, AND it was a mystery.

Mrs Nilsson is the proprietor of The Briarwood House, a boarding house for single women in 1950s Washington D.C. Living with her are her two children, teenager Pete and his younger sister Lina (who desperately wants to participate in the Pillsbury Bake-Off). The story begins in November 1954 and then flash backs to June 1950. As the tale progresses we are moved forward in time for a brief update and then back in time to a period slightly closer than the previous flashback, continuing in this vein until the flashbacks catch up with the present of Thanksgiving 1954. While the narrators for each flashback change, the narrator for the present is always the same, Briarwood House. (Yes, the House helps tell the story, and it's hard not to like the house and appreciate its thoughts.)

Through the flashbacks we meet the women who populate the boarding house and become the members of The Briar Club. Mrs Marsh, the fairy godmother of the residents, is the newest arrival in June 1950, widowed the year before. Given the topmost apartment she begins to brighten it with art, music and a cat, and her space eventually becomes home to the Briar Club Thursday night dinners. Stylish dresser Nora Walsh is a determined, hard working employee at the National Archives. Xavier Byrne is the man who woos her, and he is based on the very real Joe Nesline and Emmitt Warring.

Reka is an older émigré from Hungary, her former career as an artist has long since come and gone, as has her beloved husband who died. When she and Otto emigrated they were sponsored by a Senator who ultimately stole their most valuable possession, sketches based on Gustav Klimt's Faculty Paintings.

At the opposite end of the age spectrum is Fliss, newly married with a young daughter and living at The Briarwood while her doctor husband is off in Korea. A former nurse, she presents as upbeat, always thinking of others, and always ready with a treat. Bea is a former baseball player in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Alas, due to a knee injury she has been relegated to the side lines where, to support herself, she is teaching physical education to girls while she keeps alive the hope of returning to the game when her knee has healed.

The 1950s was the era of Joseph McCarthy and his Red Scare. Not only were suspected 'commies' targeted but concurrent was the targeting of anyone who presented as non-gender conforming, hence the Lavender Scare. Black Americans were also targets, Washington D.C. being on the edge of the South. This impacts Claire, who works for Senator Margaret Chase Smith and occasionally for E. Frederic Morrow. And finally there is Arlene, who fled her home in Texas and Operation Longhorn.

Kate Quinn has woven together the many social and cultural threads of the 1950s and turned them into a tapestry of human stories where, because this is fiction, the bad guys get their proper comeuppance. Kate suggests not reading the Historial Note until after reading the book so as to not spoil the story. However, while I shared many links based on those notes, I didn't share the link that, as Kate said, would ruin the big twist.