The Alpine Menace
An Emma Lord Mystery
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- € 4,49
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- € 4,49
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For once, Emma Lord, editor-publisher of The Alpine Advocate, isn't thrilled by having an inside track. The Seattle strangling murder of Alpine native Carol Stokes is generating headlines, but the accused killer is Emma's long-lost cousin Ronnie, who swears he was out drinking when his girlfriend was strangled. But he can't prove it, and neighbors claim they heard the couple fighting moments before the murder. Now Emma and supersnoop Vida, the Advocate's house-and-home editor, must find another suspect. Someone who hated Carol enough to write a tragic ending to her life story. Someone who is preparing to edit Emma and Vida right out of existence. . . .
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As Daheim's readers well know, Emma Lord (appearing in her 13th mystery) is a full-time journalist and part-time sleuth in the tiny Washington lumber town of Alpine. Persuaded by Vida--her gray-haired yet spunky house-and-home editor at The Alpine Advocate, who strongly proclaims the value of family ties--Emma goes to Seattle to help a long-lost cousin who is accused of murdering Carol Stokes, his girlfriend and a former Alpine resident. Emma hasn't seen cousin Ronnie since he was a kid, 25 years ago, and from what she can tell he's an aimless loser who remembers little about the night of the murder except that he was out drinking. Thus, Emma and Vida shoulder the burden of clearing him and endure a busy week interviewing neighbors, a tangle of ex-girlfriends and boyfriends and both real and adoptive parents. Emma's rather stiff performance is balanced by the colorful and resourceful Vida, who uses her age to great advantage in eliciting information. Indeed, it is Vida who carries the plot and skillfully maintains the reader's interest in the murder investigation (particularly since Ronnie seems indifferent about his innocence). Daheim's fans will be thrilled to greet Emma and Vida once again, but new readers may be disappointed that she limits the local color of Seattle to a few street names and does little more than report background information (on her regular characters) that could otherwise serve as a warm welcome to her fictional world.
