Unburying history can have unintended consequences. In Brooklyn Bones, a crime of the past comes much too close to home when Erica Donato's teenage daughter Chris finds a skeleton behind a wall in their crumbling Park Slope home. Erica—a young widow, overage history PhD candidate, and product of blue-collar Brooklyn—is drawn into the mystery when she learns that the skeleton is of an unknown teenage girl and that it was hidden there within living memory. Erica and Chris are both touched and disturbed by the mysterious tragedy in their own home. With her daughter's dangerous curiosity and her own work at a local history museum, Erica follows leads about the mysterious skeleton right back to her own neighborhood in its edgy, pregentrification days, the period when the age of Aquarius was turning dark. Now she finds that a cranky retired reporter wants to share old files, the charming widow of a slumlord has some surprises for her, and the crazy old lady who hangs around her street keeps trying to tell her something. Finally, there are some people—including ones she is close to—who know the whole story and will stop at nothing to make sure it stays buried forever.

A brutally murdered family man without an enemy in the world. A box full of charming letters home, written a century ago by an unknown female worker at the famed Tiffany studios. Historic Green-Wood cemetery, where a decrepit mausoleum with stunning stained glass windows is now off limits. Suddenly, all of this is part of Erica Donato’s life. Erica is a youngish single mother of a teen, an oldish history grad student, and the lowest person on the totem pole of the history museum where she works. Arbitrarily assigned to catalogue the valuable letters for an arrogant expert visiting the museum, she is also assigned to take that same expert to see the mysteriously closed mausoleum windows. And as stressful as her working life become, her friendship with the murdered man’s family compels her to help. Soon secrets begin to emerge in the most unexpected places. An admirable life was not what it seemed, confiding letters conceal their most important story, and too many people have hidden histories and hidden agendas. All set against the background of the splendid old cemetery and the life of modern Brooklyn, the stories of old families and old loves with hidden ties merges with new crimes and the true value of art.

"Brooklyn's rich history comes to life in Stein's wonderful descriptions, and Erica is an engaging tour guide."― Booklist Erica Donato, Brooklyn girl, urban history grad student and single mom, is researching the 1930s when Brownsville was the home of the notorious organized criminals the newspapers called Murder Inc. She quickly learns that even in rapidly changing Brooklyn, Brownsville remains much as it was. It is still poor, it is still tough, and it still breeds fighters and gangs. Doing field research, Erica stops in at the landmark local library and meets Savanna, a young woman who is the pride of her mother and her bosses, and headed for an elite college and a future. A few days later, Savanna is found beaten and left for dead. Her anguished mother is everywhere, insisting someone knows something. After a massive, angry demonstration, a young girlfriend of Savanna's is found dead, too. Is there a connection? Did perfect Savanna have a few secrets? Erica's curious. But she's focused on the 1930s and has located a few women who are happy to share memories. Two are childhood friends who disagree on much but guard secrets, too―ones kept for a lifetime. Never one to resist looking deeper than her research requires, Erica keeps encountering an apparent derelict white man, a vengeful rejected girlfriend, the role of boxing as a way out of poverty, and fading evidence of long-ago crimes.

"Stein's sure hand weaves history and mystery together for a colorful tale of love, loss, greed, and murder." ― Publishers Weekly From the earliest days of the Republic until the administration of LBJ, the Brooklyn Navy Yard was, proudly, both an arsenal of democracy, in FDR's words, and the creator of 70,000 local jobs. In time it became best known as the scary place New Yorkers had to locate to rescue their impounded cars. And then it came back to life, but not without a war. A public meeting becomes a battleground over plans to redevelop the once-proud Brooklyn Navy Yard. Local residents clamor for their own agenda in redeveloping 300 acres overlooking a sparkling downtown Manhattan, while business and real estate experts argue and city officials cower. Erica Donato, still writing her PhD dissertation about changes in city neighborhoods, witnesses the shocking murder of a power-broker that night on the Yard's condemned Admirals' Row. Erica uncovers the dead man's complicated history with the Yard, with his road to wealth and a high-flyer lifestyle, and with his wives and mistresses. When her daughter, Chris, visits her father's relatives for a family history project, Erica goes along, and learns that the Donato clan was involved in the Navy Yard's glory days and its slow, politics-ridden death. The story of Aunt Philomena, tall and blond, one of the proud Brooklyn girls who built ships in the Yard during World War II, captivates her. After the U.S. victory these women were told to give their jobs back to the men coming home. Philomena, so strong, so happy, mysteriously faded away and died young. Under pressure to drop her chapter on the Naval Yard and finish her PhD dissertation on a final deadline, as well as from the police to step aside for safety, Erica once again discovers "what's past is prologue" to murder...and to her life.

The search for a lost portrait of Brooklyn's own genius Walt Whitman sends urban historian and curator of mysteries Dr. Erica Donato into Brooklyn Heights, a neighborhood of quaint and charming streets, family names out of history, and spectacular views of the harbor and the world-famous bridge. New York's first suburb has long weathered political battles about neighborhood preservation and destruction. Is a new one shaping up? Erica meets an idol, fiery community activist Louisa Gibbs, now locked in a dispute with the Watch Tower Society. One of Brooklyn's biggest landowners, the Jehovah's Witnesses are selling off their holdings. Then at a glittering party, Erica meets the threatening Prinzig clan who are trying to buy the Witness' property adjoining Louisa's historic home. The discovery of the Society's Daniel Towns' body in the Witnesses' underground tunnels reignites old conflicts. Erica learns Louisa has made bitter enemies in her time while she becomes steadily better acquainted with a collection of characters young and old, sane and not-so-sane, living and dead. They all carry bitter secrets and old enmities. The beautiful setting only hides them. Can Erica use her research expertise to expose a killer?