March 17, 1899, should have been a full day for me at the Windsor Hotel, a twenty-four-hour day, but that wasn’t to be. You wouldn’t learn that for a while, though, because the New York City newspapers just paid attention to the posh ones who died, not to me, not to hotel maids. You wouldn’t find the name May Gleason on any of the lists of the dead and missing, at least not for a while.

I will share what I remember. I get up early and do my cleaning, working even harder than usual. I dust twelve guest rooms on the fourth floor, polish the wood furniture, wipe soot off the windowsills, scrub the sinks and commodes, mop the floors, shake out the rugs. I rush because I want to get to the roof to stand with the other maids and the bellhops and valets too. The chief housekeeper said we could take a break to watch the St. Patrick’s Day parade march down Fifth Avenue.

At each guest room I pile up the dirty laundry, then carry the heavy load in a basket down to the laundresses in the hotel basement. Walking toward the laundry room, I pass the ironing room. Who do I see there but that bothersome Hortense Webb, the maid who does for the McKinleys, that is, Abner McKinley, not the president, but the president’s brother. Abner and his family keep a suite on the second floor. Hortense is showing a gaggle of maids how to use some sort of new-fangled iron. She sounds bossy, like usual, but at the same time she seems confused, maybe not sure how those irons work. But I had no ironing to do so I only linger there for a minute, ignore a sizzling sound, then run up the servants’ staircase toward the roof.

On the fourth floor landing I see two men, loitering, glancing down the hall. I think they may be looking for Bridget, the pretty maid who’s always flirting. Bridget, well, she is a friend, but she’s always getting into scrapes and trying to pull me into her shenanigans. She thinks I’m Miss Goody Two Shoes, and she’s probably right. I do like to behave and to follow the rules. Those two men, are they waiting for Bridget, planning some indiscretions? I’m not waiting to see. I don’t want to miss the fun—respectable fun—on the roof.

I make it up there on time and pick a spot at the edge of the crowd. I hear bagpipes and lilting music before I see the marchers. One of the maids leans forward and looks left. She spots the front of the parade. The music grows louder, and I can see bystanders doing jigs on the sidewalk. Now the parade passes right by the hotel, seven floors under where I’m standing. We all wave at the marchers, yell hellos.

I feel a disturbance, a change in the air, in the sounds.

The music stops and the cries start. Fire! Fire! I smell smoke. Some of the maids start to run. Others stay still, frozen. I run around the perimeter of the roof. I see the back of Bridget’s head. Whatever mischief she got herself into, she somehow made it to the roof. Now she hustles to a fire escape. She seems to be coaxing two maids—her fawning friends—to follow her. I try to follow too. Someone pushes against me from the back. I fall, as the smoke rolls over me.

Inferno on Fifth
Genre: Historical Mystery
Release: September 2023
Format: Digital
Purchase Link

Fire!

St. Patrick’s Day, New York City, 1899. Spectators along Fifth Avenue, unaware of impending doom, enjoy the parade and the bands playing Irish tunes. Suddenly marchers halt at the immense and luxurious Windsor Hotel, watching terrified women at upper-floor windows cringe at the flames—and then leap. Within two hours, the fire kills close to one hundred people.

What set it off? An ember from a cigar? Robbers who sparked the fire as a distraction? Broken boilers in the basement?

Spunky hotel guest Marguerite Wells decides she and her two wealthy friends can discover what started the terrible inferno while three newly jobless hotel maids struggle to figure out how they can survive.

Inspired by the true story of the shocking fire that leveled one of Manhattan’s elegant hotels twelve years before the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, Inferno on Fifth prompts readers to ask how they would react in the defining seconds of an irreversible tragedy.

Meet the author
Marlie Parker Wasserman writes historical crime fiction, after a career on the other side of the desk in publishing. In addition to Path of Peril, she is the author of The Murderess Must Die (2021) and the forthcoming Inferno on Fifth (2023). Marlie lives with her husband in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. She is a member of the Historical Novel Society and the Triangle Chapter of Sisters in Crime.