MURDER AT VINLAND

A series of horrific and inexplicable attacks on women provide a reporter a chance to solve yet another murder among the aristocrats of 1901 Rhode Island.

Though she still lives in Newport, journalist Emma Cross Andrews left society reporting behind to pursue other stories after she married wealthy newspaper owner Derrick Andrews. On the one hand, Emma’s been reluctantly accepted by the Four Hundred as a relative of Cornelius and Alice Vanderbilt. On the other, her long-standing friendship with Newport Police Detective Jesse Whyte has involved her in many upper-crust murders. A luncheon at Vinland, a Viking-inspired mansion, in support of the Audubon Society attracts Second Lady Mrs. Theodore Roosevelt and the cream of Newport society, who in deference to the Audubon supporters have forgone their usual extravagantly feathered hats. At the luncheon, where she detects undercurrents of tension, Emma meets Amity Carter and her niece, Zinnia Lewis, newly arrived from Florida and friends of Vinland owner Florence Twombly. Amity has recently inherited the empty property next door to Emma’s, which she and Derrick have been hoping to buy; they want to build a new house there and turn her family home into a school. Delighted to learn that Amity approves their plans, Emma invites her and Zinnia to leave their hotel and stay in her guest room until they return to Florida. Things work out less well for luncheon guest Lottie Robinson, who has apparently been poisoned by an unidentified toxin delivered in petit fours and is not expected to survive. As other poisonings follow, Emma investigates a collection of motives ranging from broken engagements to insufficient devotion to protecting wildlife.

Juxtaposing the lives of ordinary people and the seriously rich enhances this thorny tale of love, hate, and murder.