The Socialite's Guide to Murder
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
The hotel was her refuge, but scandal is afoot—and a killer stalks the halls in this charming series debut perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Ashley Weaver.
It’s 1958 and Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy has not left the Pinnacle Hotel in fourteen months. She suffers from agoraphobia, and what’s more, it’s her father’s hotel, and everything she needs is there. Evelyn’s always been good at finding things, she discovered her mother dead in a Manhattan alleyway fifteen years earlier. Now she’s finding trouble inside her sanctuary. At a party for artist Billie Bell, his newest work is stolen, and Evelyn’s fake boyfriend (and real best friend), movie star Henry Fox, is accused of the theft. But just as Evelyn sets out to prove Henry’s innocence, she finds Billie Bell dead.
The murder weapon links the crime to the hotel’s chief of security. But why would he use a knife with his initials on the handle? With her beloved home in disarray, Evelyn joins up with hotel employee (and her secret crush) Mac Cooper to get to the bottom of the case.
As Mac picks locks and Evelyn snoops around the hotel, they discover the walls around them contain more secrets than they previously knew. Now, Evelyn must force herself to leave the hotel to follow the clues—but when she and Mac set off to chase a lead, their car crashes and they barely escape with their lives. Someone snipped Evelyn’s brake lines, and now the stakes have become dangerously high.
Evelyn’s knack for sleuthing—and her playful imagination—are always hard at work, and she throws an elaborate party at the hotel where every guest is a suspect. But will the killer emerge from the glamorous lineup? If not, Evelyn just might find herself…next in line for murder.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Golden's debut, a sprightly series launch set in 1958, Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy—fashionable daughter of the owner of New York City's glittering Pinnacle Hotel—faces the theft of a valuable painting; the murder of the artist; and the possible involvement of her best friend, an actor. Haunted by past trauma but adept at finding lost items, Evelyn enlists the aid of handsome and shady hotel employee Malcolm "Mac" Cooper as she contemplates whether a guest or a staff member may be the perpetrator. Detective Hodgson regards the hotel's security chief as the prime suspect, but Evelyn is not so sure, eyeing individuals such as an obnoxious countess, a mysterious maid, and a prickly hotel manager. Though the detective dismisses Evelyn's sleuthing, even he must concede she may be on to something when her room is ransacked and her life is endangered. With her creation of an intriguing upstairs/downstairs world, Golden channels the spirit of the late Hugh Pentecost's Beaumont Hotel. Readers will be eager to check into Evelyn's next adventure.