It’s hard to believe that Eve Karlin’s “City of Liars and Thieves: Love, Death, and Manhattan’s First Great Murder Mystery” is her first novel. The Author’s Note, alone, could stand as exemplary of how to incorporate research into historical fiction. Karlin’s subject is the real-life murder of a beautiful young woman, Elma Sands, on December 22, 1799, and a trial that involved two of the nation’s most famous founding fathers – Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Karlin credits sources – particularly Gore Vidal’s “brilliant novel “Burr” – and states clearly what she appropriated from various records, including trial transcripts, and what she changed as creative license. Readers who have seen “Hamilton” or have read Ron Chernow’s splendid biography, on which both Lin-Manuel Miranda and Karlin relied, will recognize Chernow’s complex portraits of Burr and Hamilton, particularly as they played out their rivalry over the forthcoming 1800 presidential election. The irony is their coalition as