Viviana Valentine Goes Up River by
Emily J. Edwards
My rating:
4 of 5 stars
Except for one very glaring error, this was an exceptionally good read. We might call this an almost 'locked room' murder mystery. You may be wondering why I didn't rate it higher then. I couldn't always keep it straight because there were so many secondary and tertiary characters, especially when the author sometimes used last names and then switched to first names.
This was the first time I read a locked room mystery. The reason I call it that is because once the murder happened, everyone stayed in the house and, due to a storm, never ventured anywhere else.
This was a very clever book that kept me guessing.
Oh, and the glaring error I mentioned was the use of the word "database," which wasn't used until 1962, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. So except for that, I found this to accurately represent the year 1950. Of course, I wasn't born in the 1940s, but not so many years after 1950!
*ARC supplied by the publisher Crooked Lane Books, the author, and NetGalley.
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SYNOPSIS: "1950, New York. Viviana Valentine–Girl Friday turned partner to New York’s top investigator, Tommy Fortuna–is drawn into a sordid new case when Buster Beacon, a wealthy man of science, beckons them to a party at his mansion north of the city. There, Buster entertains blue-blooded friends as well as investors keen to make a dollar on the many advancements made in his home laboratory, but he’s been hearing strange noises in the night coming from his expansive estate, and he doesn’t know who to trust.
Once Viviana and Tommy arrive, the party is snowed in. And suddenly, there is a dead body and nowhere to hide. Who killed the disguised federal agent in their midst? And how have details from the top-secret lab become public? Once chomping at the bit to be brought into this mysterious life, Viviana wonders if she’s ready for the risks that come with the territory—risks that rise treacherously high as the killer targets the next victim.
Set in the gritty, noir world of 1950 New York City, Emily J. Edwards’s Viviana Valentine Goes Up the River packs all the elements mystery fans love: an irresistibly clever protagonist, a posh cast of heroes and villains, and a murder case that could defy even the most seasoned investigator.
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