For readers who enjoy mysteries set in the late 1800s, the late E.L. Doctorow’s novel, “The Waterworks” is a mystery worth solving.

The story follows narrator McIlvaine, a New York newspaper editor, seeking his missing freelance reporter Martin Pemberton. Pemberton vanishes after telling several people he has seen his rich dead father alive in the streets of New York.

McIlvaine and his compatriot Donne, one of the few upstanding cops in an age of corruption, uncover a mystery involving the deaths of several wealthy New York men.

McIlvaine tells the story about three or four decades after the events occurring in the 1870s.

Doctorow frames the story within rich details of American history, or more specifically New York history. Here, Pemberton disappears in the age of Tammany Hall corruption ruled by Boss Tweed. Doctorow reveals how Tweed was involved in every aspect of the city, even many of its newspapers.

As with other Doctorow novels, such as “Ragtime,” “The Book of Daniel,” “Billy Bathgate” and “The March,” “The Waterworks” is compelled forward by the historic characters and events. Doctorow incorporates the history into the whole of his story.

Doctorow also introduces a villain worthy of Sherlock Holmes’ Moriarity. Dr. Sartorius mostly lives in the edges of the novel but he casts a wide shadow throughout the latter half of its pages. He’s a brilliant character.

“The Waterworks” was published in the mid-1990s, and like almost all Doctorow books, well worth finding.