{"id":5838,"date":"2024-08-13T06:26:15","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T13:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5838"},"modified":"2024-08-13T06:26:15","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T13:26:15","slug":"alyssa-maxwell-murder-at-vinland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/alyssa-maxwell-murder-at-vinland\/","title":{"rendered":"Alyssa Maxwell: Murder at Vinland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gilded Newport #12<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Murder at Vinland<\/em> is the twelfth book in Alyssa Maxwell’s Gilded Newport series set among the social elite in Newport in the late 1890s-early 1900s.\u00a0 The first book, Murder at the Breakers<\/em>, was recently made into a TV movie by Hallmark.\u00a0 I enjoyed the movie, which was better than some of the reviews would indicate, but the books are even better.\u00a0 Maxwell’s heroine is Emma Cross Andrews, a journalist and poor relation of the Vanderbilts.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Supposedly, they were called the Four Hundred because that was the number of people who could fit inside Mrs. Astor’s ballroom.<\/p>\n

As this novel\u00a0 begins, in the summer of 1901, Emma, recently married to newspaper heir Derrick Andrews, attends a luncheon at Vinland<\/a>, the Viking-inspired home of her distant relative, Florence Vanderbilt Twombly<\/a>.\u00a0 The event is a fundraiser for a Rhode Island chapter of the Audubon Society, and the guest of honor is Edith Roosevelt<\/a>, wife of Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.\u00a0 Many of the ladies of the Four Hundred are in attendance, but not all are enthusiastic about the cause of bird preservation.\u00a0 Bird feathers were used by the fashion industry of the time to adorn women’s hats, and the ladies are reluctant to give up wearing feathers in their hats, even for the greater cause.\u00a0 Then, the day after the luncheon, one of the guests falls ill and later dies after eating poisoned petit fours, which came with a card from Mrs. Roosevelt.<\/p>\n

The Second Lady is quickly exonerated, as it turns out that someone used her name on the card in order to make the victim more eager to eat the petit fours.\u00a0 Another woman who received a box of petit fours, this time with a card from one of the other speakers, also falls ill, but doesn’t die because she only took one taste of a petit four and spat it out because she knew it didn’t taste right.\u00a0 Then, several other society ladies receive tainted letters in the mail.\u00a0 Who is poisoning the ladies of Newport?<\/p>\n

Detective Jesse Whyte, a former suitor, and still a good friend, of Emma’s, enlists her aid in solving the crimes.\u00a0 Unlike police detectives in many other series, Jesse welcomes the amateur sleuth’s help, because the women of Newport’s elite will talk to Emma, even though they won’t talk to the police.\u00a0 The rivalry between Jesse and Derrick for Emma’s affections is an ongoing thread in the series.\u00a0 Although it was resolved when Emma chose to marry Derrick, the rivalry still exists, even though the two men get along reasonably well.\u00a0 Derrick doesn’t always like it when Emma gets involved in police investigations because he doesn’t want her to put herself in danger, but he realizes she’s going to, no matter what he says.<\/p>\n

In this case, all the suspects, as well as the victims, are women.\u00a0 At first the prime suspects seem to be a mother and daughter, Anna Rose and Sybil Van Horn.\u00a0 Sybil had been engaged to a young man, but when her father was arrested for embezzlement, her fianc\u00e9 broke off the engagement and married the daughter of the murder victim instead.\u00a0 Supposedly, the victim had been the one who encouraged the young man to marry her daughter instead of Sybil.\u00a0 The Van Horn women have been shunned by society because of the crimes of their father and husband.<\/p>\n

Other suspects emerge as well, including Amity Carter and Zinnia Lewis, an aunt and niece from Florida who are houseguests of Emma and Derrick.\u00a0 Amity has recently inherited the property next to Emma’s and Derrick’s house, Gull Manor, or so she says, since the inheritance is contested.\u00a0 Emma wants to buy the neighboring land and build a house there, and turn Gull Manor into a school for girls that would be open to all social classes and offer the same curriculum as boys’ schools.\u00a0 Amity seems eager to sell–perhaps a little too eager?\u00a0 She is an avid bird-watcher and advocate for bird preservation.\u00a0 Zinnia is a talented painter who doesn’t always seem happy about being dependent on her aunt.\u00a0 Emma has much sympathy for the two women, but something seems off about their behavior, enough to make her suspicious, even though they don’t appear to have a motive, or to know any of the victims.<\/p>\n

Then there is Jennie Pierpont, a fictitious relative of the Pierpont Morgan family, who was one of the speakers at the Audubon Society luncheon.\u00a0 Her speech, unlike the Second Lady’s, was not received with enthusiasm, and she seems resentful toward the women who care more about wearing fashionable hats with feathers than about protecting birds and wildlife.\u00a0 She is passionate about her cause, but is she resentful enough to kill?\u00a0 For a while, the circumstantial evidence seems to point to her.<\/p>\n

Finally, there is Mina Wallingford, an irascible woman who has been banned from several church committees because of her temper.\u00a0 No one wants to socialize with her.\u00a0 The victims are among the ladies who have shunned her.\u00a0 Does she bear enough of a grudge against them to lead her to murder?\u00a0 Then the case takes a startling turn when one of the prime suspects is murdered, and not in the same manner as the first victim.\u00a0 And Emma finds herself falling ill.\u00a0 Is she also being poisoned?<\/p>\n

This is an excellent addition to a long-running series, but it also stands on its own, so first-time readers of Maxwell’s series can enjoy it, too.\u00a0 Maxwell provides enough details about Emma’s background so that you understand what’s going on, but holds enough back so as not to spoil things for readers who want to go back and read the earlier books.\u00a0 Emma is a strong, courageous heroine, who chooses to have a career as a journalist at a time when, as the wife of a wealthy man, she would have been expected to stay home and raise children.\u00a0 She is a passionate advocate for women’s rights, including the vote.\u00a0 Even though she has married into wealth, she remains sympathetic to the poor, and wants to improve their lives.\u00a0 I am looking forward to seeing what will happen with her plan for a girls’ school, and to many more of Emma’s adventures.\u00a0 —\u00a0Vicki Kondelik<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 The first book, Murder at the Breakers, was recently made into a TV movie by Hallmark.\u00a0 I enjoyed the movie, which was better than some of the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1331,1769,1770,1772,1332,1767,1771,1768,273],"class_list":["post-5838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-alyssa-maxwell","tag-edith-roosevelt","tag-emma-cross-andrews","tag-florence-vanderbilt-twombly","tag-gilded-newport","tag-murder-at-vinland","tag-newport-1901","tag-poisoned-petit-fours","tag-vicki-kondelik"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5838"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5840,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5838\/revisions\/5840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}