Maxwell makes another charming visit to Gilded Age Newport in this story of flaunted wealth and surreptitious wrongdoing. As always, the story involves one of the Newport "cottages," this time the Rosecliff mansion designed by Stanford White for silver heiress Theresa Fair Oelrichs. Deftly interweaving fictional and historic figures and grounding the murderous mayhem in real-world matters such as the era's ruthless business practices, Maxwell delivers a fun and perfectly paced read. In addition to the well-paced plotting, I enjoyed the many rich details Maxwell incorporates. Just for example, when narrator/protagonist Emma Cross Andrews attends the Rosecliff "White Ball," she eschews such well-known society couturiers as Worth and Paquin in favor of a dress by Anna Muthesius, a proponent of women's dress reform. It's a tiny detail, but a telling one: though she is a part of the Newport scene, she has never followed its dictates slavishly. Purchase
Murder at Rosecliff by
Alyssa Maxwell at
Bookshop or
Amazon.
Kensington, August 2025.
