Janice Tangen
reporter, cozy-mystery, 1890s, law-enforcement, class-consciousness, amateur-sleuth, friendship, family-dynamics, murder, murder-investigation, historical-novel, historical-figures, historical-research, history-and-culture, relationships, yacht-races***** The publisher's blurb is a good intro to the story. Emma is a shirttail relative to the Vanderbilts, engaged to a higher member of the snob set, the owner/reporter of a local newspaper, and a good amateur sleuth who has a good friend in the police department. This time she is at a boring soiree at Beacon Rock when she and the widow Lucy Carnegie discover the body of a well-dressed young woman under the pier. Let the sleuthing begin! There are exquisite descriptions of both attire and surroundings, plus exhaustive descriptions of the lineage and implications of financial heredity as well as the general snobbery of the era. The mystery is well done, and the characters are both interesting and believable. A very good read. I requested and received a free e-book copy from Kensington Books via NetGalley.