For fans of Colleen Cambridge, S.K. Golden, Jacqueline Winspear, and Ashley Weaver, a brilliant 1950s Cold War historical mystery debut featuring the former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt’s indispensable assistant as an equally resourceful sleuth.

New York City and Washington, DC, 1951. Kay Thompson—secretary to Eleanor Roosevelt—is a young woman of conviction navigating the post-World War II period. But can she expose the dark truth about a transatlantic murder mystery unfolding before her eyes?

Previously fired for speaking out against workplace injustices, twenty-five-year-old Kay Thompson finds her true calling once appointed to support Eleanor Roosevelt, a champion of human rights known as ER among those in her inner circle. Kay fully embraces her new role as the former First Lady’s right hand—typing up daily columns and juggling a blur of political meetings, ribbon cuttings, and charitable dinners. It’s not until a dead body is discovered on a train that her most compelling task comes into focus . . .

Stunning Susie Taylor had star quality. Judging from her photos, it’s clear why she left Sweden with plans to make it big on Broadway. But when ER enlists Kay’s help on a discreet investigation about her sudden disappearance, the two suspect the up-and-comer was concealing secrets about her real identity and motives—all leading to her murder at Washington’s Union Station . . .

Plunged into a living Alfred Hitchcock film, an unseasoned Kay and a shrewd ER side with a handsome detective on a search for answers. What was Susie’s connection with a charismatic Soviet UN delegate and an atomic energy researcher? As ER makes it her mission to find out, danger looms upon the discovery of another body. Now, Kay must play a central role in exposing the killer—before she becomes the next rising beauty to meet a cruel fate . . .

Ellen Yardley's profile page

Ellen Yardley is the pseudonym of a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author whose previous novels received the National Reader’s Choice Award and the Colorado Award of Excellence. A mother of two, she finds tremendous inspiration in Eleanor Roosevelt. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.