Friday, June 16, 2017

Blog Tour - Murder Between the Lines: A Kitty Weeks Mystery by Radha Vatsal

Murder Between the Lines (Kitty Weeks Mystery, #2)
ISBN-10: 1492638927 - Paperback $15.99
  • Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (May 2, 2017), 320 pages.
  • Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

The blurb:
When Kitty Weeks's latest assignment writing for the New York Sentinel Ladies' Page takes her to Westfield Hall, a well-regarded girls' school in New York City, she expects to find an orderly establishment teaching French and dancing -- standard fare for schoolgirls in 1915.  But there's much more going on at the school than initially meets the eye.  Kitty especially takes note of the studies of Elspeth Bright, the daughter of a scientist heavily involved in naval technology, who has inherited her father's interest and talent for scientific inquiry.

Review:
I love historical fiction and detective novels and am excited to review the latest Kitty Weeks mystery.   Like Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple, Radha Vatsal's Kitty Weeks is a journalist for a women's magazine working around the time of WWI and the years thereafter.  While Daisy lost the family estate when her father and brother died and the fortune passed to the next male heir, Kitty Weeks lives in luxury in Manhattan with her widowed father.    Kitty's social connections and wealth allow her to access exclusive circles. She's able to identify and understand incongruities that would have been lost to the less socially savvy.  Fortunately, Kitty is both likable and socially liberal so while she spends time at the Waldorf Astoria or among "The First Four Hundred" we cheer for her and appreciate the peek into the New York's high society. 

In Kitty's second adventure, Murder Between the Lines, Kitty meets a brilliant young woman scientist during her visit to Westfield Hall.  When young Elspeth Bright is found dead in the snow, her mother asks Kitty's help to find out what might have led her daughter to Central Park in the middle of the night.  Kitty's investigations take her back to Westfield Hall, to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to investigate the manufacturing and use of batteries, a new and untested technology and to suffragette meetings at the Waldorf.  Jealous girlfriends, good-looking executives, women's rights advocates and an unexpected visit from President Wilson -- Radha Vatsal brings this time period to life and delivers an unusual mystery.

About the Author:
Radha Vatsal is the author of A Front Page Affair, the first novel in the Kitty Weeks mystery series.  Her fascination with the 1910s began when she studied female filmmakers and action-film heroines of silent cinema at Duke University, where she received her PhD from the English Department.  She was born in India and lives with her husband and two daughters in New York City.

Radha Vatsal's Murder Between the Lines is the second book in the acclaimed series featuring rising journalism star Kitty Weeks.