The Alpine Menace: An Emma Lord Mystery [Mass Market Paperback]

Emma Lord, owner and editor of the Alpine Advocate is happy for him, really she is. Even though Jeannie Clay is young enough to be his daughter.

Emma is also in love, although Emma is a little reluctant to lose her independence, so much so, that she wouldn't let Tom buy her a new car when her old jaguar was trashed. Instead she's paying him $50.00 a month for the Lexus until it's paid off or they get married. Since this affair has been going on for almost 30 years, she'll probably pay the car off.

She has unwed mother, Amber Ramsey & baby Danny living with her. Amber is an unbelievable slob. And she's inherited two cats, Rheims & Rouen.

In the middle of all this, Emma gets a phone call from a long unheard from cousin Ronnie Mallet, who's in jail for murdering his girlfriend Carol Stokes. Carol had grown up in Alpine, and he had heard through her that Emma was some kind of investigator and could she help him.

At first Emma doesn't want to do anything. It's Easter and her brother Ben, who's a priest in Tuba City, Arizona and her son, Adam, who's a seminary student in St. Paul are coming for a visit. But plans are upset and Emma finds she's going to be alone over the Easter weekend, so her sidekick and employee from the paper, Vida Runkel talks her into checking out Ronnie's story. Vida thinks family is the most important thing in the world, even if you don't know them.

Ronnie turns out to be somewhat of a dunderhead, he's more worried about the whereabouts of his dog than the fact that he's in jail for murder.

Checking out the victim, Emma finds that Carol Stokes is the kind of person who probably had a lot of people who wanted to kill her.

She had a tendancy to beat up her boyfriends, including Ronnie.

She stole Ronnie from her next door neighbor Maybeth.

She had recently been reunited with the daughter she had put up for adoption. Kendra Addison, seemed pleased to meet her birth mother, but her parents weren't as thrilled.

Neither the police or Ronnie's attorney will listen to Emma as she tries to tell them about the alabi she found for Ronnie.

Then another neighbor of Carol's, 60ish year old nurse, Henrietta Altdorf is killed.

Emma and Vida gather all the clues which go back almost 20 years to solve this puzzling mystery.

Highlights:

The Harquist and O'Neill's feud, which started years ago when the family's pet goat was run over, flattening everything but the hat it was wearing. The Harquist's kidnap 15 year old Meara O'Neill and are hold up in their home. During the standoff with the sheriff's department, Meara sets the house on fire and when the Harquist boys (they're in their forties) are running out, one of them trips on the front steps and shoots Milo in the foot.

Ed Bronsky's autobiography Mr. Ed is being turned into an animated series, of course all the people are now going to be animals and Ed & his family will be Pigs.

No lowlights in this book. It was an enjoyable mystery and unlike the last out of town mystery (Alpine Journey) it held your interest. A nice surprise killer.

I do wish the reoccurring characters would be used more. They were hardly involved in the storyline at all.