The Alpine Scandal: An Emma Lord Mystery

Mary Daheim

Jan 2008 · Emma Lord Book 19 · Sold by Ballantine Books

About this ebook

Welcome to mystery lovers’ favorite destination: Alpine, Washington, Mary Daheim’s picturesque old logging town in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. From the Venison Inn to the Upper Crust Bakery, Front Street is jumping–and the nerve center of the community is the office of The Alpine Advocate, Emma Lord’s weekly newspaper, which keeps folks up to speed on everything from joyous weddings to sudden, violent death.

THE ALPINE SCANDAL

It’s a quiet morning at the Advocate until the mail brings shocking news: a formal obituary for Alpiner Elmer Nystrom. As far as anyone knows, Elmer is alive and well. But he hasn’t turned up for work, so Emma and her unstoppable House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, rush to the Nystrom home, where they find Elmer’s lifeless body in the henhouse, half buried under straw. Not only has he been murdered, but his obituary had been mailed before he died. Though Elmer was well liked by everyone, the same cannot be said of his standoffish wife or his son, the town’s new orthodontist.

Rumors fly–straight into the office of the Advocate. Why did Dr. Nystrom’s new receptionist resign at the end of her first day? Why are the Nystroms’ neighbors so close-mouthed? Who mailed that prophetic obituary? With Sheriff Milo Dodge in the hospital, it’s up to Emma and Vida to get to the bottom of the tragedy. Alpiners love scandal, and with Elmer’s murder, they’ll get their fill.

The Alpine Scandal, number nineteen in this bestselling series, is as suspenseful and charming as its predecessors, a delicious look into the life of a small town where all inhabitants know one another–just not as well as they thought.

About the author

Mary Richardson Daheim started spinning stories before she could spell. Daheim has been a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but fiction was always her medium of choice. In 1982, she launched a career that is now distinguished by more than sixty novels. In 2000, she won the Literary Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. In October 2008, she was inducted into the University of Washington’s Communication Alumni Hall of Fame. Daheim lives in her hometown of Seattle and is a direct descendant of former residents of the real Alpine, which existed as a logging town from 1910 to 1929, when it was abandoned after the mill was closed. The Alpine/Emma Lord series has created interest in the site, which was named a Washington State ghost town in July 2011. An organization called the Alpine Advocates has been formed to preserve what remains of the town as a historic site.