In Deadly Fashion
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Heiress Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter are about to become more than partners as investigators—they are to be wed at Trinity Church in Lower Manhattan. But a killer has designs on ruining the wedding as well as their lives . . .
IN DEADLY FASHION
AUGUST 1891. Prudence has her heart set on wearing her mother’s wedding gown on the happy day, but she soon discovers the material has deteriorated so badly that it cannot be refurbished. With time running out, she decides to seek out a new American designer, a woman who trained in the House of Worth, the makers of the original dress in Paris, who now has a shop in New York City.
The gown is nearly complete when the expert seamstress overseeing the project is found dead in the studio, with Prudence’s wedding dress slashed to ribbons and scattered over the body. The murder incites a scandal, as client after client deserts the now struggling designer. Now not only must Prudence find the murderer, she must rescue the talented young couturière’s reputation—all while another gown is being hastily sewn.
The police suspect the seamstress’s disgruntled lover. Prudence wonders about other designers competing in the cutthroat world of high fashion. But when additional wedding plans start to go awry, it’s clear there is an elaborate campaign of sabotage and that either Prudence or Geoffrey or both are being targeted.
Once again they must work as a team to expose whoever is determined to ruin their lives—before the future they’ve so long dreamed of is left in tatters . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The ferociously competitive fashion scene of 19th-century New York City makes a delicious backdrop for Simpson's excellent latest Gilded Age mystery (after Death Takes the Lead). In 1891, Prudence MacKenzie, an heiress turned lawyer and PI, is weeks away from marrying ex-Pinkerton agent Geoffrey Hunter when Brenda Leavitt, the seamstress working on Prudence's wedding gown, is found murdered. After a bit of poking around, Prudence comes to suspect the true target might have been Brenda's employer, the talented couturiere Madame Regine, who has been attracting too much attention in Manhattan's insular dressmaking community to keep explosive secrets from her past in Paris under wraps. Geoffrey's Southern roots prove just as problematic when a long-lost adversary shows up in his life once more. Simpson's plot gallops along confidently as suspects emerge and fortunes reverse, but it's the well-drawn supporting players who make it sing. As the main cast of blue bloods play their games, corrupt police officers and desperate workers circle the action, allowing Simpson to deepen her social portraiture without sacrificing genre thrills. With immersive detail, three-dimensional characters, and walloping surprises, this is a cut above the standard historical whodunit.
