Geraldine Bonner

[from review in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle Apr 26 1919]

Story of a Woman Detective

The handsome jewels of wealthy Mrs. Samuel Janney were stolen from a safe in her country home juts after her daughter, Mrs. Chapman Price, and her husband had agreed to separate. Mrs. Janney called in one detective and Mrs. Price engaged another, but neither succeeded in finding any clew. They suspected Chapman Price and also Miss Maitland, Mrs. Janney's private secretary, but failed to obtain any evidence. So the family lawyers engaged Molly Babbitts, a former telephone girl, and she set to work on the mystery. Then Mrs. Price's little daughter Babette is kidnapped and held for ransom, and Molly has another case to clear up. But she finally does so in a very satisfactory manner, and all ends as it should.

[from review in the Indianapolis News, Aug 14, 1915]

If you like a good detective story, don't overlook "The Girl at Central," by Geraldine Bonner, who has already done good work in previous novels. In this fascinating story, of a mysterious murder and the telephone girl who set herself to solve the mystery, there is originality, keenness, humor and excellent technique. Molly Morgenthau is a combination of Polish Jew and Irish Catholic, and fortunately she combines the best qualities of each of her parents. She is stationed at a small New Jersey town, where the estates near the town are owned by wealthy and aristocratic folk whom she never dreams of meeting, though she does fall romantically in love with one of them -- Jack Reddy. But when Jack is engaged to the beautiful and wealthy Sylvia Hesketh, and when Sylvia is found murdered on the edge of. a wood, a hundred miles from home, Molly sets her wits to work to find out who has done it. She succeeds, too, though not in the way she intended. The plot is well worked out, the characters are natural and interesting -- Molly is especially good, with her slang, her imperfect education, her "east side" point of view, her kind heart and capable brain. The mystery is not solved till just at the last, and when you put down the book, it is with a sigh of pleasude [sic] and satisfaction. You have had no detective, with a red hair in one hand and a slipper in the other, posing as an infallible person, but you have been splendidly entertained, and delighted with your new heroine, the telephone girl.

[from review in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 29 Apr 1916] Hollings Harland, a copper broker, and his partner, Johnstone Barker, are engaged in a discussion on the eighteenth floor of the Black Eagle office building. Following this Harland is found dead on the sidewalk and Barker is missing. Suicide, say the newspapers, but a lawyer and two detective friends call it murder and the real clue is discovered when "The Girl at Central" attempts to solve the mystery.