Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1273516 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From Publishers Weekly
The author of the popular and acclaimed Dorothy Martin mysteries (Malice in Miniature, etc.) begins a new series featuring a turn-of-the-century Swedish servant woman as sleuth. Hilda Johansson is a maid for the prominent Studebaker family in South Bend, Ind., in the year 1900. Coming home from an outing with her beau, an Irish fireman, Hilda discovers the body of a savagely beaten woman. The dead woman is a missionary lately returned from China and the sister of the Studebakers neighbor, a Republican judge with political ambitions. Impelled to trying to figure out who perpetrated such as brutal crime, Hilda uses South Bends network of servants and immigrants to aid her investigation, fearing that an innocent man might take the blame for the killing. The resolution of the puzzle is a bit slapdash, relying too heavily on coincidence and not enough on real detective work. Hilda is nevertheless an appealing heroine, and Damss rich depiction of South Bend will please historical mystery fans. Mystery Guild main selection.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In her new historical series, Dams (Malice in Miniature, LJ 10/1/98) endows turn-of-the-century South Bend, IN, with vibrant atmosphere and a bright young Swedish immigrant heroine. Hilda Johansson, employed as a housemaid by the wealthy Studebakers, discovers the body of a female missionary in her employer's yard. Though properly horrified and warned by the butler and others to mind her own business, Hilda feels obligated to fight against narrow-minded police and typical social/cultural prejudice as she manages to unearth crucial clues. A piquant but sometimes humorous lookAunderscored by an Upstairs, Downstairs mentalityAat a rapidly changing America, this solid beginning is highly recommended. [Mystery Guild main selection.]
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
From the author of the popular Dorothy Martin mysteries comes the first installment of a series that will delight fans of gentle whodunits. The year is 1900. Hilda Johansson is a young Swedish emigreworking as a servant for the wealthy Studebaker family of South Bend, Indiana. When Hilda stumbles upon a body near the Studebaker residence, she determines to find the real killer and save the man wrongly accused of the crime. Hilda--young, poor, unfamiliar with the English language, but possessed of intelligence and determination--is an engaging, attractive character and refreshingly different from the scores of amateur female sleuths who populate the genre. Dams, who lives in South Bend, has a good grasp of life at the turn of the century and of the class structure that defined society at the time. Although the mystery itself is relatively easy to solve, the world as seen through Hilda's eyes is a slightly unfamiliar place, and readers will have a great time getting to know it. David Pitt