The Goddess of Shipwrecked Sailors by Skye Alexander

The Goddess of Shipwrecked Sailors by Skye Alexander

First Paragraphs:

After driving for seven hours, the four musicians arrived at Matthew Gardner's home on the most fashionable street in Salem, Massachusetts, a three-hundred-year-old town known for its seafaring history, Nathanial Hawthorne, and hanging women suspected of witchcraft.  Lizzie eyed the grand boulevard and the elegant eighteenth-and nineteenth-century mansions that lined both sides of it.

'How very pretty,' she said.

Candles burned in the windows of the Gardners' handsome three-story Georgian house.  An electrified Moravian star illuminated the front portico.  In the yard, an evergreen tree strung with chains of popcorn and cranberries offered food for the birds.  Despite temperatures in the low teens, a group of carolers, bundled up against the cold, strolled from house to house, celebrating the holiday with joyful voices.

My Thoughts:

I  loved  this 3rd entry into the Lizzie Crane mystery series, written by Skye Alexander.  The timeframe is again the mid-1920's and Lizzie and her friends, Melody, Sidney, and Bert (also known as The Troubadours) are hired to provide entertainment during the '12 Days of Christmas' for the Gardner family and their guests.  The setting is Salem, Massachusetts in this book and I really enjoyed all the information about this famous Massachusetts area.  All begins well, but soon there is a dead body and a cousin that Lizzie didn't know she had who might or might not be someone she'd like to know.  The body is found near her 'new' cousin's tavern and you can add theft, a missing goddess, and secret tunnels under the streets of Salem.  These were used long ago in Salem's shipping days to smuggle goods.  Could they still be in use?  Hmmm....it's possible.

Salem's history has been well researched by the author and she includes lots of things you might have known, but there are likely more that will be new to you.  As I said, I loved it and am happy to report that #4 in the series is in the works.  The author shared a guest post with me last week here.  My conclusion - try this series, bet you'll like it!        

Blurb:

December 1925: Salem, Massachusetts

When Matthew Gardner, the heir to a shipping fortune, hires New York jazz singer Lizzie Crane and her band to perform during the Christmas holidays, she has high hopes that this prestigious event will foster their career and bring them riches and recognition. She’s also eager to reconnect with a handsome man from one of Boston’s most esteemed families, whom she met at an earlier visit to Massachusetts.

But the evening the musicians arrive in historic Salem to begin their engagement, police discover the body of a man near a tavern owned by Lizzie’s cousin––a cousin she even didn’t know she had until Christmas Eve. In the dead man’s pocket is a cryptic letter addressed to Gardner. To compound her dismay, she also learns that her host plans to marry his daughter to the man Lizzie wants for herself.

Soon Lizzie’s caught in the middle of a high-stakes feud between her cousin and her employer over a mysterious lady. When she digs deeper into their conflict, she discovers its roots are deep and bitter: her cousin’s father crewed on one of Gardner’s grandfather’s ships that sunk during a storm in 1868. As she struggles to piece together the puzzle and find the lady at its center, Lizzie becomes a pawn in each man’s deadly game for money and revenge.