Alyssa Maxwell: Murder at Vinland
Gilded Newport #12
Murder at Vinland is the twelfth book in Alyssa Maxwell’s Gilded Newport series set among the social elite in Newport in the late 1890s-early 1900s. The first book, Murder at the Breakers, was recently made into a TV movie by Hallmark. I enjoyed the movie, which was better than some of the reviews would indicate, but the books are even better. Maxwell’s heroine is Emma Cross Andrews, a journalist and poor relation of the Vanderbilts. Emma grew up in reduced circumstances, which gave her a great sympathy with the poor, but, because of her illustrious relatives, she also is familiar with the world of the Four Hundred, the elite who lived in New York and spent their summers in Newport. Supposedly, they were called the Four Hundred because that was the number of people who could fit inside Mrs. Astor’s ballroom.