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 –