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What's the worst that could befall a 31-year-old Philadelphia Main Line socialite? A botched manicure? A maxed out credit card? How about having to get a JOB? That's Nora Blackbird's fate, because her parents have squandered the family fortune and moved to a haven for tax evaders. They have left Nora's sister Libby the family furniture, Emma the art collection, and Nora the family farm, with a $2 million tax liability. When she is down to her last Lean Cuisine, Nora seeks help from Rory Pendergast, an octogenarian newspaper publisher, whom she has always regarded as a grandfather. He gives her a job writing about the milieu she knows best -- Philadelphia society. She is second banana to the lethal Kathy Keough, who kisses the behinds of the rich, the famous, and the well born, disguising the fact that her father worked in a steel mill, unlike the upper class Nora, whose Blackbird family is as old as the city itself. All three Blackbird sisters are widows, though Libby recently remarried to a Civil War buff. Her first husband drowned in the Pacific on a Green Peace mission. Emma's husband died in an automobile accident, and Nora's drug addict husband was shot by his dealer. Nora incurs the wrath of her sisters when she sells five acres of the family property to satisfy her tax bill. The buyer was Michael Abruzzo, a man with "connections" in South Philly and New Jersey. He promised that he would treat the land with the reverence such historical property deserved. Instead, within hours he had turned the property into a lot for "Muscle" cars. Thanks mostly to his persistence and his charm Nora becomes romantically involved with him. Things heat up when Nora appears at a party thrown by Rory Pendergast to celebrate the longevity of his newspaper. After he retreats to his study and refuses to return to the party, Nora goes upstairs to try to persuade him to come back. She discovers him -- smothered to death. Soon sister Libby gives Nora a bag with the Zhejang Folio, a book of Asian erotica, which Rory had given her to restore. Nora covers it with a slip and stores it in her underwear drawer. Though the house is ransacked, the folio is not discovered. (Why a person who turns a house upside down wouldn't thing that a woman might hide something among bras and slips is a mystery in itself.) The folio, valued at $6 million, is the target for several people. The shady Jonathan Longnecker insists that Pendergast promised the folio to him for his museum. Ralph Kintswell, Libby's husband, would like to sell the folio and use the proceeds to fund his $500,000 pledge to save a battlefield near Gettysburg. (His stocks have gone south, and he really needs the money to keep his promise.) Although this is Martin's first mystery, she has written some 38 romance novels. Her skill as a storyteller is evident as she keeps the plot moving while giving a sense of Philadelphia society and draws distinct personalities in the three sisters, the odious Kitty, and the charming blackguard Michael.
Reviewed by Mary Elizabeth Devine, September 2002
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