Murder at Kingscote
-
-
4.4 • 47 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
For fans of HBO’sThe Gilded Age, explore the dark side of the alluring world of America’s 19th century elite in this gripping series of riveting mysteries…
In late nineteenth-century Newport, Rhode Island, journalist Emma Cross discovers the newest form of transportation has become the newest type of murder weapon . . .
On a clear July day in 1899, the salty ocean breeze along Bellevue Avenue carries new smells of gasoline and exhaust as Emma, now editor-in-chief of the Newport Messenger, covers Newport's first-ever automobile parade. But the festive atmosphere soon turns to shock as young Philip King drunkenly swerves his motorcar into a wooden figure of a nanny pushing a pram on the obstacle course.
That evening, at a dinner party hosted by Ella King at her magnificent Gothic-inspired "cottage," Kingscote, Emma and her beau Derrick Andrews are enjoying the food and the company when Ella’s son staggers in, obviously still inebriated. But the disruption is nothing compared to the urgent shouts of the coachman. Rushing out, they find the family's butler pinned against a tree beneath the front wheels of Philip's motorcar, close to death.
When Emma later receives a message informing her that the butler bullied his staff and took advantage of young maids, she steers the police toward a murder investigation. While Emma investigates the connections between a competing heir for the King fortune, a mysterious child, an inmate of an insane asylum, and the brutal boxing rings of Providence, a killer remains at large—with unfinished business to attend to . . .
“Excellent . . . Maxwell combines convincing character development and vivid depictions of Newport’s heyday with a well-plotted mystery. This historical series just keeps getting better.”
—Publisher Weekly (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in 1899, Maxwell's excellent eighth Gilded Age Newport mystery (after 2019's Murder at Crossways) finds newspaper editor-in-chief Emma Cross and her beau, Derrick Andrews, at a high-society motorcar competition, where they see 21-year-old Philip King crash his car while driving drunk. That evening, Emma and Derrick are dining with King's widowed mother, Ella, at her "cottage," Kingscote, when the butler, Isaiah Baldwin, is found crushed between a beech tree and Philip's car. Philip, who has borrowed money from the butler that he can't repay, is the obvious suspect, but Emma isn't convinced. Isaiah was a boxing aficionado who lied about his last post, seemed inexplicably flush with cash, and had an unsavory reputation with women. Emma also probes a woman claiming to be the real heir to the King family fortune, as well as a housemaid with something to hide. Meanwhile, she questions her future in the newspaper business and with Derrick, whose family disdains her lack of social standing. Maxwell combines convincing character development and vivid depictions of Newport's heyday with a well-plotted mystery. This historical series just keeps getting better.
