Murder a la Richelieu

Meet Adelaide Adams, spinster and amateur sleuth, who is sometimes irreverently referred to by members of the younger generation as "Old Battle-ax." As Miss Adams says: "I was knitting in the lobby of the Hotel Richelieu the morning it all started. And not until it was forever too late did I recognize the tragic significance back of Polly Lawson's pink jabot and the Anthony woman's false eyelashes. And as I sat there knitting on my afghan there was nothing to warn me that it would serve as a shroud for a woman who was to die horribly at my feet. Nor at that time could any power on earth have convinced me that I should find myself late one terrible night, sans my dress and false hair, dangling from the eaves of the Richelieu Hotel in pursuit of a triple slayer." It is easy to see that the situation at the Richelieu was not a simple one. However, Adelaide Adams, was hard to swerve from her purpose, and in the end her "blundering" -- as Officer Sweeney was wont to call it -- unveiled a murderer too clever by far for the conventional police. A fun book sure to appeal to fans of classic detective fiction! Anita Blackmon Smith (1893-1943) was a prolific mystery author who published more than 1,000 short stories and a handful of novels. She wrote in the "Had I But Known" school. Her other novels include "Her Private Devil," "Handmade Rainbows," and "There Is No Return" (the second Adelaide Adams mystery).