Starred review from October 15, 2014
Charlotte and Thomas Pitt's 23-year-old daughter, Jemima, stars in Perry's 12th Victorian Christmas mystery (A Christmas Hope). Jemima is chaperoning wealthy Phinnie Cardew from London to New York City, where Phinnie will be marrying Brent Albright, a son of her father's business partner. The Albrights are wealthy, powerful, and very concerned about society's opinion. When Brent's older brother, Harley, suspects that Phinnie's disreputable mother, Marie, may be in New York and planning on making an unpleasant surprise appearance at the wedding, he enlists Jemima to persuade Marie not to attend. Instead, Jemima finds a dead woman stabbed in her bed, and the circumstances lead policeman Patrick Flannery to arrest her. As soon as Jemima is out on bail, she starts investigating and trying to prove her innocence, encountering many secrets and unexpected allies while she searches for the killer. VERDICT Perry writes a thoroughly enjoyable mystery set against the wonderful historical backdrop of 1904 New York City at Christmastime.
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