It is 1904 and Jemima Pitt,
independent-minded daughter of Inspector Pitt of London’s Special Branch, has
secured a position as companion to business heiress Delphinia Cardew. Her main
duty is to accompany ‘Phinnie’ to on a transatlantic trip to marry Brent
Albright, the son of her father’s business partner.
Phinnie’s father can’t make the trip due to
illness, and when a baby she was deserted by her mother, so there is only
Jemima to help her settle in with the prospective in-laws and prepare for the
wedding.
With everything well in hand Jemima accepts the
offer of Brett’s brother Harley to be shown the sights, but this turns out to
be a pretext to involve her in a confused but secret mission to find Phinnie’s
mum (who he thinks is in New York) and thwart any plans she may have to spoil
the wedding by turning up.
When the mysterious mother is found the circumstance
are unfortunate, particularly for Jemima, but luckily a handsome police officer
is on hand to aid her efforts to extricate herself from trouble and solve what have
by now become multiple mysteries.
In fact the solutions are glaringly obvious
well before they are revealed, obfuscated only by the flimsiness of apparent
motives for much of the criminal activity. The dialogue is stilted, the
characters are paper thin, and turn-of-the-century New York has never been
painted so dull.
The book’s saving graces are its slimness
(154 pages) and lack of any hard words to slow down the reader.
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