Murder at Kingscote

Eighth in the “Gilded Newport Mystery” series (following Murder at Crossways) finds Emma Cross uniquely positioned in Newport as an established local, a poorer relative of the Vanderbilts, an excellent sleuth, and newly appointed editor in chief of the Newport Messenger. While covering Newport’s first-ever automobile parade, complete with an obstacle course, she notes alcohol on the breath of young Philip King—just before he crashes off course, demolishing a wooden statue of a nanny pushing a baby in a pram. Later the same evening, at a dinner party thrown by Philip’s mother, Ella King, Philip makes a late drunken entrance shortly before the discovery of the Kings’ butler gruesomely pinned against a tree—by the same automobile Philip crashed earlier in the day. What seems a simple case turns into a series of knotty mysteries requiring perseverance and understanding of the intricacies of Newport politics: the moneyed families and the locals who serve them.