A Gilded Drowning Pool

A Gilded Drowning Pool

As a girl in the West, Valentine Mackle dodged quicksand along the rivers of the mining camps, but as Mrs. Roderick W. DeVere of New York’s Fifth Avenue, Val is sucked into Society’s own quicksand in spring, 1899, when a weekend at a country estate in the Hudson Valley turns deadly. Val’s “soul sister” drowns on family property, and the host’s best “practical jokes” double as death traps.

Print length
374
Language
English
Publisher
Cecelia Tichi
Publication date
May 9th, 2023
Formats: Kindle Edition, Paperback

As a girl in the West, Valentine Mackle dodged quicksand along the rivers of the mining camps, but as Mrs. Roderick W. DeVere of New York’s Fifth Avenue, Val is sucked into Society’s own quicksand in spring, 1899, when a weekend at a country estate in the Hudson Valley turns deadly. Val’s “soul sister” drowns on family property, and the host’s best “practical jokes” double as death traps.

A Gilded Drowning Pool snarls Val and husband Roddy in a bogus adult health camp, a brothel, a town-and-country pocked with probable killers—and an ambitious police chief convinced that Val and Roddy DeVere played a part in the death that is ruled a homicide


Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2023
Verified Purchase

Intelligent, smart and suspenceful

I adore Valerie Mackle DeVere. She is a an excellent character, so complex and yet easy to relate to. She’s of another era, but very likeable and well written. Val and Roddy’s combined sleuthing is always intelligent, smart and suspensful.

This time they visit at a grand home, Kiddswood, in ”the in between season”, a place her husband Roddy visited in younger years.

The reason for their visit is a problem with water shortage at Kiddwood because of a problem on deVere’s neighbouring land. When a body is found on the deVere’s land Roddy and Val needs to investigate.

They discover the issue with the water, but there are a lot more going on and Val and Roddy have to use all their ingenuity to unravel all mysterious threads they encounter. A delightful read!

I love this series, it’s so full of information about a forgotten era and I learn a lot. Yet it’s never on the nose, it all flows through the story with excellent ease. And all the characters are well written, most of them are exposed as more complex personalities the more they appear in the story.

I really recommend this book.

I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.


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