My review: Feisty, Gilded Age Heroine-Detective!

Set in the glamorous whirl of late nineteenth century Newport, Rhode Island, Maxwell creates a charming female character in Emma Cross, a poor relation to the powerful Vanderbilt clan. Although she’s a writer for the society pages, she ends up as an accidental detective when her black-sheep half-brother is arrested for a murder during a huge Vanderbilt ball. I love how author Maxwell shows her determined heroine at work using the full range of investigative techniques available at the turn-of-the-century. Wonderful, light-hearted read!

From the book description:
As the nineteenth century comes to a close, the illustrious Vanderbilt family dominates Newport, Rhode Island, high society. But when murder darkens a glittering affair at the Vanderbilt summer home, reporter Emma Cross learns that sometimes the actions of the cream of society can curdle one’s blood. . .

Newport, Rhode Island, August 1895: She may be a less well-heeled relation, but as second cousin to millionaire patriarch Cornelius Vanderbilt, twenty-one-year-old Emma Cross is on the guest list for a grand ball at the Breakers, the Vanderbilts’ summer home. She also has a job to do–report on the event for the society page of the Newport Observer.

But Emma observes much more than glitz and gaiety when she witnesses a murder. The victim is Cornelius Vanderbilt’s financial secretary, who plunges off a balcony faster than falling stock prices. Emma’s black sheep brother Brady is found in Cornelius’s bedroom passed out next to a bottle of bourbon and stolen plans for a new railroad line. Brady has barely come to before the police have arrested him for the murder. But Emma is sure someone is trying to railroad her brother and resolves to find the real killer at any cost. . .

Murder at the Breakers