From Amazon.com
Like her librarian heroine Glynis Tryon, Miriam Grace Monfredo must be a voracious polymath, interested in everything from high fashion to the work involved in making fake bills and coins. Both subjects play important roles in her fourth book, another historical mystery set in the upstate New York town of Seneca Falls, this time in 1859. But even though her story is full almost to the point of bursting with issues such as slavery and women's rights and real characters such as Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist John Brown, Monfredo also manages to keep us interested in her fictional creations as they deal with their daily lives against the canvas of history. Other books in this rewarding series available in paperback are
Seneca Falls Inheritance,
North Star Conspiracy, and
Blackwater Spirits.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Monfredo (The Seneca Falls Inheritance, etc.) scores with another compelling mid-19th century mystery starring librarian/feminist Glynis Tryon. The sinuous plot skillfully incorporates significant political and social changes of the time, from women's suffrage to banking reform and Isaac Singer's revolutionary sewing machine. In May 1859, after a year's visit with her brother's family in Illinois, Glynis returns to Seneca Falls, N.Y., bringing along her niece Emma. A man is murdered on their train shortly after handing her a pouch containing money and a ring and mentioning Seneca Falls. Back home, Glynis is absorbed in a variety of problems: her assistant has wasted library funds on romance novels; counterfeit money and weapons thefts are rife; seven more people die; and her old swain, Sheriff Cullen Stuart, has a new lady friend. Monfredo deftly gathers these subplots into a coherent tale that leads to a finale in a panther den. There, Glynis corners the mastermind responsible for the crimes, solving a case which is tied to funding John Brown's attack on Harper's Ferry and to attempts by abolitionists and the English to hasten a civil war. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass and John Brown appear but don't overshadow the commanding cast of fictional characters, including a new romantic interest for Glynis.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
