Beacon Street Mourning: A Fremont Jones Mystery - Softcover

Day, Dianne

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553580612 ISBN 13: 9780553580617

Publisher: Bantam, 2001

Synopsis

Five years ago Caroline Fremont Jones fled the proper world of her native Boston for the independent life of a California private detective. But now, in the winter of 1909, she is grief-stricken to learn of her father’s grave illness.

Still hampered by half-healed injuries from her last adventure — but buoyed by her ever-deepening affection for her partner in love and work, Michael Kossoff — Fremont leaves sunny San Francisco for the ice-edged air and handsome mansions of Beacon Street.

Her visit has scarcely begun when her father, suffering from a malady not even his doctor can diagnose, takes a turn for the better ... only to die suddenly in the middle of the night. Fremont is certain her odious stepmother, Augusta, somehow caused her father’s death. But how? And did she have an accomplice?

Michael questions Fremont’s suspicions ... until an exotic piece of evidence and a second, violent death trigger an investigation that draws upon childhood memories and fears to become Fremont’s most personal one yet.

About this title

Review:

Fremont Jones, still mending from her last adventure (Death Train to Boston) is called back from San Francisco to Boston because of her father's illness. When Fremont arrives to find him hovering near death, her dislike of her stepmother, Augusta, soon blooms into suspicion about Augusta's role in Leonard's mysterious "wasting" disease. Their strained relationship becomes even more difficult when Fremont insists that Leonard be moved immediately to a hospital. Fremont is so encouraged by her father's progress and so willing to make him happy that, despite her feminist principles, she acquiesces to his wish that she marry her lover Michael, the intriguing Russian émigré who is also her partner in a California detective agency. But then Leonard dies, supposedly of a heart attack. Fremont is certain he's been poisoned, but when Augusta too dies--shot to death--it becomes clear there is more than one adversary for the plucky young woman to contend with, and she sets out to solve the mystery.

Fremont Jones is an intriguing character, a Boston Brahmin and bluestocking whose New England roots are strong and deep and whose independence and autonomy are often in conflict with her love for Michael as well as with the cultural mores and values of her time and place. Author Dianne Day gets the period details down perfectly and adds to the picture of Fremont Jones that has emerged from her previous books featuring this strong-willed, sexy, and consistently interesting heroine. The pace is slow, but both the development of character and the atmosphere Day creates make that a plus rather than a minus. --Jane Adams

From the Publisher:

6 1.5-hour cassettes

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0553580612
• ISBN 13: 9780553580617
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304