Customer Reviews

The Alpine Traitor (An Emma Lord Mystery)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The Alpine series is a delight and I look forward to each outing. Emma Lord is back in another wonderful mystery set in Alpine, Washington. Tom Cavanaugh's family comes to town and starts trouble for Emma and her staff at the Advocate, and turmoil erupts.

I won't go into detail about the plot of the book, but I will say this is another winner in the long-running Alpine series. However, I agree with a few other fans that Ms. Daheim should retire her bed-and-breakfast adventures and focus her attention on this mystery series. Although I have read only one book in the B&B series, "Just Desserts," I prefer the books with Emma Lord and her friends in Alpine, Washington. The characters are more developed, interesting and three-dimensional.

I look forward to Daheim's next Emma Lord capers. Although the town of Alpine, Washington is homey and fun to read about, I tire of the atmosphere and can only hope Daheim takes Emma far away from her hometown, like she did in THE ALPINE ESCAPE and THE ALPINE JOURNEY.

T.B. Grant
3/16/2008

It's amazing that after 20 installments, this series is still going so strong -- especially when the author's B&B series is so awful.

This book was hard to put down and kept you turning pages until the end. I do admit that Emma got a bit annoying with her wussiness about her new reporter and her constant whining every time she didn't get an e-mail, or enough attention, from Adam. And Vida was her usual annoying, buttinsky self. But these things weren't enough to detract from the story.

One of the best things about this series is the way the characters and the town come to life. And it's not just the major characters like Emma, Vida and Milo -- it's the minor characters that only pop up now and then but whom you feel like you know after so much time.

I'm sad that it looks like there'll only be six more books before the series concludes. I've enjoyed visiting Alpine for so long and hope the author can find a way to let me continue to visit.

Emma Lord is shocked when the children of her deceased fiance, Tom Cavanaugh, try to take over her small-town newspaper, the Alpine Advocate. She is determined to resist the takeover and is disappointed that Tom's children are so hostile to her. There is a murder and a shooting and suddenly Emma and her employees begin to fear for their lives. This 20th. book of the Emma Lord Mystery Series has all of the usual characters, from Emma's son, Adam, to her eccentric sidekick, Vida. The plot is somewhat convoluted and keeps the reader guessing until Mary Daheim chooses to reveal the bad guys at the end of the book. This is another good entry in this long-running series.

This was my first "Alpine" mystery. Perhaps I should have started at the beginning of the series, because as a character novel this was fun, but as a mystery, a complete dud. Other than an arrest of the "bad guys" at the end (with very limited proof of what they'd done), there was no resolution. Daheim's minimal answers as to why the bad guys showed up to start with, or why they felt that impersonations were necessary (especially when they were bound to be discovered), had no logical basis at all. Nor was there any credible reason given for murdering one of their own. All she said was he was probably double-crossing the others, with no further explanation as to either why, or how.

I've read a couple of the bed and breakfast mysteries, and found them reasonably satisfying. But for a very long-time mystery buff, this book was a serious disappointment, kind of like Lillian Jackson Braun's last "Cat Who." I don't like authors and publishers who keep selling series mysteries when the authors have clearly lost their touch. At least Braun just minimized the plot, rather than making it long and drawn out with no logical ending, like this one. If I had bought this book (I got it from the library), I would have asked for my money back.

The book is long-winded and that makes the plot boring. At first you'll laugh a little with the jokes but then you'll read almost the same jokes once and again.

Rates very high with the other books in this series. Don't know what I'm going to do when Mary Daheim reaches Z.

Mary Daheim is one of my favorite mystery writers. I really enjoy her Alpine series. This book was well-written. There were no loose ends that she didn't tie up.

In Alpine, Washington, Dylan Platte, representing his wife Kelsey and her brother Graham, offers to buy the Advocate from Emma Lord who says no. Dylan insists that his late father-in-law Tom Cavanaugh planned to buy the newspaper to add to his empire, but died before he could make a deal. Emma thinks back to how she almost married Tom and would have been stepmother to his now thirty something children who allegedly are carrying out his wishes.

Emma goes to spend the weekend in nearby Seattle. Alpine Sheriff Milo Dodge calls her to inform her that someone murdered Dylan, shot in the chest in his motel room; and she is considered a viable suspect. Returning home, Emma and Milo investigate the homicide with the help of House & Home Editor Vida Runkel. However, the case takes a strange speedy spin in Sacramento while another person is shot in Alpine.

The newest Emma Lord mystery is a brisk entry as the audience learns much about the heroine's past with the late Tom. The investigation is as always well done and entertaining, but it is an emotionally wrought Emma, reliving what if thoughts, who makes this a strong Washington State murder mystery.

Harriet Klausner

Really - many people gave this 5 stars? I'm surprised. I'm not sure why I keep reading these books, I guess it's the familiarity with all the characters, it's not because the last one was really great. My real problem with this installment was the negative talk about all the "young folk." No one under 50 can seem to get their act together. They are flaky and irresponsible.

I also didn't think the shooting was fully resolved in the end. The guilty parties were simply picked up by the police. And then what? Ugh.

I have read all of the books in the Alpine series, enjoying each of them. I think "Alpine Traitor" is a favorite, hated to put it down, couldn't wait to pick it up again.