My Series-ous Reading has me meeting Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante

 

As this year is quickly coming to a close, my Series-ous Reading feels a bit rushed there.

However, some things are worth taking your time with and a Maggie Hope mystery by Susan Elia MacNeal certainly falls into that category.

Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante brings our leading lady Maggie back to America as part of Winston Churchill’s official entourage upon the US entering WWII.

 While seeing her aunt(who raised her after the alleged death of her parents) again as well as possibly patch things up romantically with former beau John Sterling are key priorities for Maggie, those focuses are shifted as the First Lady is in need of someone with spy skills to solve a potential murder.

When Mrs. Roosevelt’s current secretary, Blanche Balfour, goes missing at work , Maggie joins the First Lady in checking in on the young woman personally. To their mutual shock, Blanche is found dead in what is meant to be seen as a suicide but evidence casually left behind makes it clear that this was not the case.

While discreetly looking into the matter, Maggie learns that Blanche’s demise is part of an overall scheme to discredit Mrs. Roosevelt, who is trying to get her husband to stop the unjust execution of a young man named Wendell Cotton.

Wendell’s trial and soon to be carried out death sentence was railroaded through the system as a political gain for the governor of Virginia, which makes FDR somewhat reluctant to get involved due to needing support form the southern states to fund the new war effort.

Maggie is willing to help on more than one front here, particularly since this sinister campaign against Mrs. Roosevelt could affect both England and the US in working together to fight the Axis powers.

 Not to mention that Eleanor herself is such an inspiration to the many causes for the betterment of others that Maggie consider it her duty to assist her as best she can:

I’ve compared these books to watching a great TV series like Agent Carter(which should’ve lasted longer than two seasons!) and that standard still holds true in this fifth entry.

MacNeal’s cast of characters, from historical figures like the Roosevelts and Walt Disney (who plays a pivotal part in Maggie’s renewed relationship with John) to her fictional folk, are vividly created enough that their own story lines are just as engaging as the main mystery of the book.

We also get welcome moments of amusement as Maggie gives one of her British friends a copy of Little Women for Christmas and his first time reading reactions are fun to say the least-reminds me of that book swap between Rachel and Joey on Friends that time!

MacNeal also keeps continuing plot points going on that don’t directly affect the central action yet are definitely important to keep an eye.

 The escape of a persistent nemesis occurs towards the end of the book(semi spoiler alert) and while it may be awhile before I get back to this series, I am most intrigued to see what trouble this particular shady lady causes for Maggie and company in the books to come:

Meanwhile, my next to last selection for Series-ous Reading is Homicide in Hardcover , the first title in Kate Carlisle’s Bibliophile Mystery books that I am finally reading for the first time!

After reading this series out of order for quite awhile now, it’s great to now get to where it all started for Brooklyn Wainwright, a bookbinder who literally faints at the sight of blood, on her sleuthing side hustle so to speak.

With Brooklyn reuniting with her mentor Abraham at a library event celebrating the restoration of a rare edition of Faust, finding him dead before the book is fully repaired is startling in more ways than one.

While she does want to find the killer and make sure that Faust is ready for display, Brooklyn is up against challenges from friends as well as foes. Plus, this particular edition is supposedly cursed to boot, which is fitting for anything to do with Faust, if you ask me: