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Million Dollar Baby
A Marjorie McClelland Mystery, No.1

by Amy Patricia Meade

      Million Dollar Baby is really a cross genre book, combining romance with historical and cozy mystery in one light but enjoyable read.

Marjorie McClelland is a successful young mystery writer living in small-town Connecticut during the Depression. Despite the times and some intrusive neighbors, she has a fairly comfortable life. That comfort gets disrupted with the arrival of Creighton Ashcroft III, a man of wealth and style who has bought the mansion that a local businessman left empty with his suicide early into the Depression. Creighton is deeply smitten at his first sight of Marjorie, but an attempt to get closer to her ends badly -in hysteria and accusations when they stumble across a body on the grounds of his new home. They reconcile, but a new complication arises when Marjorie meets Jameson, the movie-star-handsome police detective assigned to the case. That triggers a determination to investigate for herself, to provide both grist for her writing mill and an excuse to get closer to the fascinating detective. Creighton is welcome to assist and, in fact, she intends to make as much use of him as she can. But that doesn't mean he should get any ideas... Well, actually Marjorie isn't wholly sure what she thinks or feels from one minute to the next. Meanwhile, the investigation spreads wider and wider, from the murder they stumbled across into questions about how it might relate to the apparent suicide that left Creighton's house vacant, into new crimes and secrets that pop up faster than the existing ones can be solved.

This was a fun, fast read. I did find it a bit frustrating at times when people would too obviously do and say the wrong things just to set up new plot complications. But overall, it moved along nicely, with an active plot, light humor, bantering dialogue, vividly depicted settings, and a nice series of interlocking puzzles to solve. The Depression era setting is very effective, believably suiting the characters, their interactions, and the story being told, without the author ever being heavy handed about forcing period detail on the reader.

The Book

Midnight Ink
April 2006
Trade Paperback
Historical Mystery [1930s Depression Era Connecticut]
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The Reviewer

Kim Malo
Reviewed 2006
© 2006