Curious Toys by Elizabeth Hand *** (of 4)

At its best, Curious Toys captures Chicago in 1915. It's a city of Polish, Italian, German, and Irish immigrants alongside a handful of African Americans. The characters in this carefully researched murder mystery are largely from the wrong side of the tracks. The story's chief protagonist, Pin Mafucci is a 14-year-old girl, whose single mother dresses Pin as a boy for her protection. Together they live in a shack on the edge of the Riverview Amusement park where Gina Mafucci tells gypsy fortunes and Pin runs the grounds with a pack of boys.

The shouts of carnival barkers, squeals of roller coasters, shrieks of haunted houses, blaring signs for freak shows, and syrupy smell of cotton candy mixed with spilt beer are all fused amongst crowds of families wilting beneath a Chicago summer. Inside Hellgate -- a frightening river ride with cobwebbed skeletons illuminated by unpredictable flashpots -- Pin discovers a young girl who has been murdered and left to float among the passing boats whose occupants are generally more interested in canoodling in the dark than canoeing.  

Elizabeth Hand reaches for larger messages about the sexualization and victimization of girls and young women, the reflexive racism of urban police forces, and the stigmatization of poverty and mental illness. Her admirable attempt sidetracks the story from an otherwise exquisite description of a unique time and place in American history.