Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for The Socialite’s Guide to Murder (A Pinnacle Hotel Mystery) by S. K. Golden. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
The Socialite’s Guide to Murder (A Pinnacle Hotel Mystery)
by S. K. Golden
The Socialite’s Guide to Murder (A Pinnacle Hotel Mystery)
Historical Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – New York City, 1958
Crooked Lane Books (October 11, 2022)
Hardcover : 320 pages
The hotel was her refuge, but scandal is afoot—and a killer stalks the halls in this charming series debut perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Ashley Weaver.
It’s 1958 and Evelyn Elizabeth Grace Murphy has not left the Pinnacle Hotel in fourteen months. She suffers from agoraphobia, and what’s more, it’s her father’s hotel, and everything she needs is there. Evelyn’s always been good at finding things, she discovered her mother dead in a Manhattan alleyway fifteen years earlier. Now she’s finding trouble inside her sanctuary. At a party for artist Billie Bell, his newest work is stolen, and Evelyn’s fake boyfriend (and real best friend), movie star Henry Fox, is accused of the theft. But just as Evelyn sets out to prove Henry’s innocence, she finds Billie Bell dead.
The murder weapon links the crime to the hotel’s chief of security. But why would he use a knife with his initials on the handle? With her beloved home in disarray, Evelyn joins up with hotel employee (and her secret crush) Mac Cooper to get to the bottom of the case.
As Mac picks locks and Evelyn snoops around the hotel, they discover the walls around them contain more secrets than they previously knew. Now, Evelyn must force herself to leave the hotel to follow the clues—but when she and Mac set off to chase a lead, their car crashes and they barely escape with their lives. Someone snipped Evelyn’s brake lines, and now the stakes have become dangerously high.
Evelyn’s knack for sleuthing—and her playful imagination—are always hard at work, and she throws an elaborate party at the hotel where every guest is a suspect. But will the killer emerge from the glamorous lineup? If not, Evelyn just might find herself…next in line for murder.
Guest Post
THE ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM HEIST
and the socialite who founded the gallery
by SK Golden
When I talk about an ‘art heist’ my guess is most people think of the 1990 robbery in Boston. You know the one, I’m sure. There was even a Drunk History episode about it. Some dudes dressed as cops knock on the back door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum after hours. The security guards let them in. Then the security guards spend the rest of the night tied up while the costumed thieves steal thirteen pieces of art. It’s technically unsolved to this day, though I once heard Ace Atkins give a Q&A about his book, OLD BLACK MAGIC (written for the Robert P Parker character Spenser), that he had spoken to a criminal believed to be behind the heist and got a few details for his book that way. He did not give the criminal’s name. This is probably a wise move because if the man Atkins questioned really is someone who can pull off the robbery of 13 priceless pieces of art without firing a shot, you don’t want to end up on his bad side by being a narc.
(Old Black Magic is a good book, by the way, in case you needed yet another to add to your TBR, and the author was very gracious with his time.)
But this blog post isn’t about the heist itself, though, I do love a heist that involves no deaths, no injuries, just brazenness. I want to write about the founder of that Boston art gallery: Isabella Stewart Gardner.
A socialite born in New York City in the spring of 1840, Isabella traveled the world collecting art with her husband, John Gardner. A Boston reporter is quoted as saying about her, “She imitates nobody; everything she does is novel and original.” A good example of that is when she showed up to a formal event at the Boston Symphony Orchestra wearing a headband that read, “Oh, you Red Sox,” on it. This was scandalous for the time.
She reminds me a lot of my sleuth, Evelyn. Evelyn is also a socialite, the daughter of a rich man, born and raised in New York. Though there are about 100 years between them, the spirit of the two – unconventional and daring – rings true. There’s also the Catholic connection, as Isabella first went to school at Grace Church in Manhattan, and my character Evelyn’s mother was Catholic and taught her how to pray.
Evelyn prays mostly to Saint Anthony, the patron saint of lost things. She is good at finding things and often finds herself in trouble. In THE SOCIALITE’S GUIDE TO MURDER, she finds the body of a dead artist.
At 16, Isabella left Manhattan and went to finishing school in Paris, where she made friends with a young woman named Julia Gardner. Julia later introduced Isabella to her future husband, John Gardner, Julia’s brother and Boston local. The two married when Isabella was 20 years old. They had one son together, who died of pneumonia as a toddler. Isabella then suffered a miscarriage that impacted her ability to get pregnant again. It was the doctors who urged her and her husband to travel as a form of healing. She kept detailed journals of their travels and returned to Boston refreshed, establishing herself in Boston society. Isabella and John adopted John’s nephews when his brother passed away.
Isabella in Venice
After inheriting almost two million dollars when her father passed away, Isabella began collecting European fine art. She and her husband spent most of the 1890s collecting art, having to enlarge their home once to fit it all. When her husband died in 1898, she bought land for a museum to share their collection with all of Boston. Construction finished in 1901. Isabella lived on the fourth floor of the museum, installing her collection on the first three floors. The doors opened to the public in 1903. She curated the museum for the rest of her life, twenty more years.
She suffered a stroke in her late seventies, but she continued to entertain visitors in the museum until her death five years later. John Singer Sargent painted her after the stroke in her museum apartment, wrapped in white. A daring, unconventional look, even while recovering.
Isabella wrapped in white
In her will, she left an endowment so that the museum would be able to stay open. Her stipulation was that the collection should stay the same. She also requested in her will that the Cowley Fathers perform an annual mass in the museum’s chapel for the peace and rest of her soul, which is, honestly, kind of a cool thing to make people do after you’re dead. Like, hey, get together in this church I built every year on my birthday and pray for me. But don’t sell my paintings! Thank you and Go Sox.
Museum
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is still open in Boston today. It’s unfortunate that the heist overshadows the legacy of the woman who founded it, but it’s still there, still showcasing incredible pieces of art. The building itself is beautiful, too. As unconventional and daring as its namesake.
Sources:
Drunk History: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2906698/
Robert B Parker’s Old Black Magic by Ace Atkins
Isabella Gardner Museum: https://www.gardnermuseum.org/about/isabella-stewart-gardner
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_Stewart_Gardner
About S. K. Golden
Sarah K Golden is the author of the cozy mystery Murder at the Pinnacle Hotel. Born and raised in the Florida Keys, she married a commercial fisherman. The two of them still live on the islands with their five kids (one boy, four girls — including identical twins!), two cats, and a corgi named Goku. She graduated from Saint Leo University with a bachelor’s degree in Human Services and Administration and has put it to good use approximately zero times. She’s worked as a bank teller, a pharmacy technician, and an executive assistant at her father’s church. Sarah is delighted to be doing none of those things now. She is currently working on book two in the Evelyn Murphy series.
Author Links
- Webpage: https://www.skgoldenwrites.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SKGoldenWrites
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/SKGoldenWrites
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skgoldenwrites/
Purchase Links:
PenguinRandomHouse – Amazon – B&N – Kobo – IndieBound
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The Socialite’s Guide to Murder TOUR PARTICIPANTS
December 5 – Reading Reality – REVIEW
December 5 – Brooke Blogs – CHARACTER GUEST POST
December 5 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
December 6 – Cozy Up WIth Kathy – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
December 6 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
December 6 – Bootsie’s Book Nook – SPOTLIGHT
December 7 – Ruff Drafts – SPOTLIGHT
December 7 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
December 8 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – AUTHOR GUEST POST
December 8 – Socrates Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
December 8 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
December 8 – Novels Alive – REVIEW – SPOTLIGHT
December 9 – Guatemala Paula Loves to Read – REVIEW
December 9 – I’m Into Books – SPOTLIGHT
December 9 – MJB Reviewers – SPOTLIGHT
December 9 – Book Club Librarian – REVIEW
December 10 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
December 10 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee Blog – SPOTLIGHT
December 10 – Elza Reads – REVIEW
December 11 – Lady Hawkeye – SPOTLIGHT
December 11 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
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This sounds like a fascinating book that I would enjoy reading!
Thank you for sharing this post! I enjoyed doing the research for it!
You’re welcome! I loved your guest post. “oh, you Red Sox.” Hilarious!
Congrats on your debut! This sounds great. I’m excited to check it out.
I like the cover. The minimum use of color is interesting!
Loved the guest post!
cover art drew me in along with the synopsis. Can tell the attention to detail and homework you took on to create such a smart, cozy rea.