Murder a la Richelieu

Meet Adelaide Adams spinster and amateur sleuth who is sometimes irreverently referred to by members of the younger generation as Old Battle-ax. As Miss Adams says: I was knitting in the lobby of the Hotel Richelieu the morning it all started. And not until it was forever too late did I recognize the tragic significance back of Polly Lawsons pink jabot and the Anthony womans false eyelashes. And as I sat there knitting on my afghan there was nothing to warn me that it would serve as a shroud for a woman who was to die horribly at my feet. Nor at that time could any power on earth have convinced me that I should find myself late one terrible night sans my dress and false hair dangling from the eaves of the Richelieu Hotel in pursuit of a triple slayer.It is easy to see that the situation at the Richelieu was not a simple one. However Adelaide Adams was hard to swerve from her purpose and in the end her blundering -- as Officer Sweeney was wont to call it -- unveiled a murderer too clever by far for the conventional police.A fun book sure to appeal to fans of classic detective fiction!Anita Blackmon Smith (1893-1943) was a prolific mystery author who published more than 1000 short stories and a handful of novels. She wrote in the Had I But Known school. Her other novels include Her Private Devil Handmade Rainbows and There Is No Return (the second Adelaide Adams mystery).