When a pretty, young Press Office secretary is bludgeoned to death in the Blue Room of the White House, Eleanor Roosevelt begins to investigate, questioning a house full of visiting Russian diplomats. Reprint. NYT. AB.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
For the eighth time, the author casts his mother as a sleuth, setting this novel in 1942 during a secret visit from Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov. President Roosevelt, the First Lady and U.S.S.R. Ambassador Litvinov are dining at the White House when a killer strikes in the Blue Room. The "golden blonde" target was a staff secretary; later, her friend, another blonde, is also murdered, leading Mrs. Roosevelt to ask embarrassing questions of young married "men about town": Representative Everett Dirksen; Nelson Rockefeller; and others who spent evenings with the victims in "hot-sheet hotels." There are additional suspects, including a Roosevelt-hating reporter and a Boston Brahmin who had dated both women. With her usual acumen, Mrs. Roosevelt provides evidence against the obviously guilty party. The author safely impugns the dead and takes relatively harmless potshots at the living (at Nixon, for one), which isn't cricket but will no doubt titillate gossip mavens. Altogether, the novel is transparent make-believe, trivial compared with the grave events in that year of the war and the character of Eleanor Roosevelt. Mystery Guild selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Class warfare,
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This review is from: Murder in the Blue Room (Hardcover)
It is 1942. Mrs. Roosevelt and schoolchildren discuss bombs. Louis Howe, the President's confidant, has been dead for six years. Missy LeHand is ill. The Soviet Foreign Minister, Molotov, is visiting. The Russians bring their own vodka to the cocktail party. They are suspicious of the shaker of martinis.
A golden blonde appears in the Blue Room. The Secret Service is summoned. The death is not accidental. Her name is Emily Ryan. She was twenty eight years old and an orphan. Miss Ryan worked for Stephen Early, the President's Press Secretary. It seems that Emily had saved her carbon paper and by such means slipped stories to a radio commentator. Mrs. Roosevelt discovers that Don Pettengill, (his mother was a Cabot), is engaged to be married to Barbara Lowell. Armed with such knowledge she begins to unravel this ably told mystery.
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