In A PAIR OF ACES, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray once again turn their keen, incisive eyes to some of history’s most overlooked female figures.

Born amid Russia’s pogroms and forced to blaze her own path in America, Polly “the Jewish Jezebel” Adler knows a thing or two about blending in, reading people and making her own way. Now, as a high-class madam whose famous brothel serves everyone from the Hollywood elite to prestigious businessmen, Polly is facing a new obstacle: the mob. For years, she has run her brothel in a way that champions and protects her girls while still catering to the city’s elite. She has done it all by herself, hiring her own bodyguards and support staff, and avoiding any connections to organized crime. 

But in 1935 New York City, connections to the mob have become nearly unavoidable. When notorious crime boss Dutch Schultz invites himself and his violent men into Polly’s home, it seems that her luck has run out. The subject of organized crime in her city has become political, with Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey and District Attorney William Dodge butting heads to become the one to save New York from its criminal underbelly and secure their own political futures in the process. Both are eager to take down anyone associated with the likes of Schultz or his nemesis, Mad Dog Coll, whose path of destruction has been striking in its brutality.

Operating on the other side of the law is Assistant District Attorney Eunice Carter, Manhattan’s first Black female prosecutor. Eunice was born into a world much like Polly’s. Forced to flee her childhood home in the South after a string of violence, Eunice has climbed the ranks through college, law school and now the prosecutor’s office. Though the esteem that comes with being handpicked by Dewey is an elation all its own, Eunice has become dissatisfied lately with her role within the department. Rather than being assigned her own organized crime-related racket to investigate, she has been charged with listening to citizen complaints. 

"The book’s title, a smart nod to poker’s best starting hand, is apt. As Polly and Eunice prove, no matter how stacked the deck, there’s simply no beating a well-matched pair of aces. That description also applies to the dream team that is Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray."

But with this isolated task comes a revelation. Through hundreds and hundreds of calls, Eunice has learned that prostitution is the number-one issue plaguing everyday citizens. Brothels are cropping up on every block, leading to crime and violence. Deciding to investigate the speed and efficiency with which these brothels --- and the sex workers who populate them --- appear, dodge jail time and reappear, Eunice spots a curious pattern of cases where girls have their sentences either reduced or dismissed. Though her superiors are quick to write off prostitution as a “vice case,” Eunice can tell that there is something bigger happening here. If she can connect the upswing in prostitution to that of organized crime, she can earn her place among her white male peers and help bring an end to the bloodshed plaguing her city.

When a series of violent hits leave both Schultz and Coll deceased, Polly and Eunice acknowledge one thing: their deaths will not put an end to the mob’s hold over New York, but rather will create an opening for a new criminal to rise and become boss. That man, they soon learn, is Lucky Luciano. Unlike his showy predecessors, Lucky has accomplished something that no other mobster has been able to pull off before: uniting the crime factions under one governing whole. 

Controlling everything from narcotics to theft, and loan sharking to extortion, Lucky has only neglected to conquer one corner of the crime world: prostitution. Polly and Eunice realize quickly that a world controlled by Lucky would be dangerous for them and the people they’ve sworn to protect. But unlike the many police officers, prosecutors and attorneys who have tried to take down the notorious crime boss, they have an edge: an insider’s look into the world of prostitution...and each other.

Though Polly and Eunice occupy very different corners of New York and its judiciary, their backgrounds in academics and refugeeism make them perfect collaborators. Both incredibly gifted intellectually and accustomed to battling tough odds, it is no surprise that they have risen to the top of their sectors. Once they earn each other’s trust, it becomes obvious that they have been underestimated for far too long. Banding together, they vow to take down Lucky once and for all, but with a much more patient, tender and protective air than their male counterparts, who are quick to go in guns blazing and with half-baked plans. Instead, they employ Polly’s network of women and Eunice’s legal precision to embark on one of the greatest investigations ever --- all while they continue to be overlooked and questioned about their legitimacy and competency. 

Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray bravely and unflinchingly walk readers through back rooms where dangerous deals are made, lounges where hits are ordered, and the very real violence that comes with organized crime to demonstrate the risks the women are facing, all the while laying the groundwork for their alliance to deepen and grow. The result is one of the country’s most sensational trials ever: the prosecution of Lucky Luciano, the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family.

Known for their work highlighting history’s ignored women, Benedict and Murray deliver their most gripping and shocking novel yet. More than just setting the groundwork for the characters and storylines they’ve created, they erect entire neighborhoods, laying the cement of the city’s streets, throwing up skyscrapers, and decking them out with decadent plush armchairs, the warm hum of jazz and hazy cigarette smoke. Early on, it is easy to see the comparisons between Polly and Eunice --- both gifted and forced to flee violent settings --- but Benedict and Murray handle these similarities so deftly that the connections feel organically discovered rather than forced. 

This sense of discovery helps immerse readers into Polly and Eunice’s alliance as they come to know and respect each other. The result is deeply absorbing, so much so that you practically expect to look up from the book’s pages to see that your home has been transformed into a smoky cocktail lounge, a suited mob boss throwing back whiskey as a lingerie-clad vixen approaches him. 

But Benedict and Murray don’t stop there. In demonstrating the elite, gilded world that Polly is allowed to inhabit, they highlight the inequalities that Eunice has faced. Though she is the more educated and “upstanding” of the duo, she is still barred from many important rooms due to her race. Polly, meanwhile, often suffers jabs about her accent and nationality, usually while she is pouring drinks and offering women to the very men who make the cracks. It’s a searing takedown of wealth and corruption, but it's also a ringing endorsement of the women who learned to navigate these male-dominated worlds and carve out positions of power. 

The book’s title, a smart nod to poker’s best starting hand, is apt. As Polly and Eunice prove, no matter how stacked the deck, there’s simply no beating a well-matched pair of aces. That description also applies to the dream team that is Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray.