Kathy Lynn Emerson, No Mortal Reason

No Mortal Reason

Kathy Lynn Emerson

Pemberley, Apr 2007, $17.95

ISBN: 0977191346

In 1888, there are many newspapers competing for the large New York City market, but few "girl" reporters work as journalists. Widow Diane Spaulding is one of the few as she has worked for the Independent Intelligence newspaper.

She and her fianc Dr. Ben Northcote take the train to rural Liberty, New York, before finishing her journey in even more rustic Lenape Falls where they will stay for a few days before continuing to his family in Maine to marry. In Sullivan County, New York, Diana meets relatives that she never knew existed until recently when her cold, Denver-based mother for the firs time mentioned aunts and uncles. However, as she becomes involved in the lives of the Grants and Torrances, she worries that a con artist is setting up her relatives in a scam to make their family-owned hotel into a Saratoga Springs-like resort. That pales as Diane uses her snooping skills to prove her Uncle Howd the artist is not a killer but the sheriff thinks he murdered the victim, whose bones were just found ten years after the homicide occurred.

The terrific look at Upstate New York in the late-nineteenth-century makes NO MORTAL REASON feel more like a historical novel especially through much of the first part of the novel; the whodunit subplot enhancing the period piece. The cast is as strong as Diana's relatives, other townsfolk, a seemingly shyster hotelier, a nasty goat and the corpse make for quite a family reunion for the heroine and her beau. Once Diana begins the investigation, the storyline switches gear from a historical family drama into a cold case murder mystery. Fans will have NO MORTAL REASON not to enjoy this Kathy Lynn Emerson's fine tale of a woman who holds her face up with pride.

Harriet Klausner