Levy, Lawrence H. Mary Handley mystery.

"Mary Handley is a not your typical late nineteenth-century lady. She's fiery, clever, daring--and she's not about to conform to the gender norms of the day. Not long after being fired from her job at the hat factory for insubordinate behavior, Mary finds herself at the murder scene of Charles Goodrich, the brother of a prominent alderman and former bookkeeper of Thomas Edison. When Mary proves her acumen as a sleuth, she is hired by the Brooklyn police department--as the city's first female policewoman--to solve the crime. The top brass of the department expect her to fail, but Mary has other plans"--Amazon.com