The Alpine Uproar: An Emma Lord Mystery

(Paperback)

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Description

The twenty-first installment of Mary Daheim's series featuring Emma Lord proves once again that life in the peaceful town of Alpine is usually anything but--and more evidence that Daheim never disappoints her fans. In Emma Lord's newest outing, a fight erupts at the local tavern, and a patron is murdered with a pool cue. But what initially seems to be an open-and-shut case disintegrates into the contradictory and confused recountings of the murder's many witnesses. And each one has their own agenda behind the story--some of them committed enough to lie. It's up to Emma Lord and her longtime compatriot, Sheriff Milo Dodge, to figure it out. Picturesque Alpine is no longer the brawling logging town of yesteryear. So when a drunken fight at the Icicle Creek Tavern leaves a loner named Alvin De Muth dead, the residents feel as if they've gone back to the Bad Old Days. The inquiry into the incident should be a no-brainer, but since the witnesses were half-tanked at the time, Sheriff Milo Dodge is left with conflicting stories. But soon Emma Lord, editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, has an even bigger story to report- a heartbreaking highway accident that leaves two people dead and one on life support. Rumors are flying- Are the two tragedies linked in some inexplicable way Assisted by that human bulldozer Vida Runkel, the Advocate's House & Home editor, Emma goes for the gold.

Reviews

Daheim writes . . . with dry wit, a butter-smooth style, and obvious wicked enjoyment.The Oregonian

Daheims premisethat random occurrences are connectedkeeps the reader turning the pages.Publishers Weekly

Always entertaining . . . [a] slice of wry.The Seattle Times

Author Bio

Mary Richardson Daheimstarted spinning stories before she could spell. Daheim has been a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but fiction was always her medium of choice. In 1982, she launched a career that is now distinguished by more than sixty novels. In 2000, she won the Literary Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. In October 2008, she was inducted into the University of Washington's Communication Alumni Hall of Fame. Daheim lives in her hometown of Seattle and is a direct descendant of former residents of the real Alpine, which existed as a logging town from 1910 to 1929, when it was abandoned after the mill was closed. The Alpine/Emma Lord series has created interest in the site, which was named a Washington State ghost town in July 2011. An organization called the Alpine Advocates has been formed to preserve what remains of the town as a historic site.