Tag: 2003

The jewel-thief wife of an old college flame of Nora’s has been found dead at the bottom of the pool after a party one night.

While Nora is never really considered a suspect, she’s close to the family and the patriarch is up for a big government position so Nora once again uses her social schedule, listening to, and chatting with, people who knew the victim and who might have wanted her dead.

The plot of this one was a little bit wacky, but touches on a few darker and racier themes that are usually a no-go in cozies, but Martin does it so well the reader rarely notices.   The culmination of the mystery ends up with Nora in peril, but kudos to Martin for coming up with a rather clever method of self defence that, while wholly implausible except under the most unusual circumstances, wins points for sheer creativity.

The first book in what would become a 10 book series (not counting novellas) sets the tone.  Nora is the middle sister of three who were raised in a blue-blood Philadelphia Main Line family to be debutants, but whose parents spent all the fortunes, raided their trust-funds, then stole enough money from friends to leave the country, leaving the oldest with the family furniture, the youngest with the family’s art collection, and Nora got Blackbird Farm, complete with a 2 million dollar tax bill.

With no skills but great connections, she’s given a job as the assistant to the social columnist at the tabloid newspaper, owned by a family friend.  At a party celebrating the newspaper’s longevity, she finds said owner dead in his bedroom and its obviously murder.

I like that Martin chose to make Nora the opposite of the clichéd amateur sleuth: she’s not fragile at all, takes Krav Maga for exercise, but she has a fainting problem, and being kind and classy is deeply woven into her dna.  But she can’t help but want to help people when they ask her to, and her job attending parties gives her a ready made opportunity to ask questions and listen to gossip.  I like that Nora’s obvious romantic interest is the son of a mob boss who is fighting to stay out of the family and against the criminal instincts he was raised with, and that he shows his interest with sincerity instead of braggadocio.

The mystery was well plotted with a resolution that neither transparent nor obvious, and it made sense at the end.