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Back from their USO stint in the South Pacific in the fall of 1943, Rosie Winter and her best friend, Jayne, head upstate to visit the home of Jayne's recently deceased fiancé. But what they find leaves Rosie wondering if the man ever existed to begin with.
As Rosie searches for the truth behind his identity—and a way to help heal Jayne's broken heart—she faces an unpleasant homecoming of her own. The newspapers are filled with tales of saboteurs infiltrating the East Coast. Her ex, Jack Castlegate, is also back in Manhattan, nursing severe war injuries, under scrutiny for desertion, and engaged to a gorgeous WAC private. Rosie and Jayne's friend Al is in hiding and no one seems willing to help him out.
Desperate to make things right, Rosie finds herself telling lie after lie to protect her friends and herself. But as her deceit mounts and lures danger out of hiding, she starts to wonder if they weren't all safer on the warfront than they are on the home front.
LuckyLadyLM
Posted July 31, 2010
I read all three Rosie Winter Mysteries and loved each and every one. I love the characters along with such wonderful imaginative plots and the World War II setting. I have been impatiently waiting for book 4 and was not disappointed--it was FANTASTIC! Rosie and Jane are back in New York and find themselves blacklisted--I don't want to disclose too much because there is so much happening--wonderful twists and turns. The author has truly made the characters come to life for me. I would love to have some audio CDs of her books to put in the car. I hope these will be forthcoming very soon! I am so looking forward to book number 5--I just wish we could get it in six months instead of waiting a year!
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Rosie Winter is a woman living through the difficulties of WWII trying to find her place and to survive living through war times. She is an aspiring actress just returned from a USO tour with her friend Jayne to find her room at the boarding house had been rented. So now they are staying there but with new roommates who may be holding some secrets that are either life altering to the country or as simple as a women with a working knowledge of how to encrypt letters written in invisible ink.
Rosie was chasing a dream when she went overseas with the USO following her love Jack who it turns out was in love with someone else. But while Rosie's heart was broken her friend Jayne found love but all too soon lost her Billy when his plane was shot down. Rosie is trying to help her recover from this loss and as they go to say the proper respect to Jayne's late fiancé's parents it turns out he is not who he said he was and the life he was living was not his own. So the hunt begins to uncover who Billy really was, why was he was living under the name of another soldier and why does he have money hidden in a coat pocket he deserted. Rosie and Jayne are also dealing with Jayne's ex mob boyfriend who has gotten them blackballed from getting stage work waiting for Jayne to come back to him. Rosie is all about solving mysteries but this time are there too many to resolve, probably not for her. It also seems to be Rosie's responsibility to help her ex fiancé Jack as he recovers from the wounds he received overseas. Geez she is broken up with him isn't that enough pain and suffering, apparently not because he needs her strength to get better.
But things take a scary turn of events when the aunt of Jayne's deceased fiancée turns up murdered and the plot thickens to molasses with a lack of clues and too many suspects. Was her being German the problem, maybe a traitor or just an innocent victim of circumstance and prejudice? Rosie is an actress by career choice an amateur sleuth by natural instinct who when given all these clues can solve the crime and not just because she is nosy but just good at uncovering mysteries and fitting pieces of the puzzle together. If not for Rosie's ability to knock those walls down and barreling through the issues nothing would get done right but this time the dark shadows are following her so the bigger question becomes can she keep her herself as safe as she should so that nothing happens to her?
What wonderful characters, a well written book about a time in our history that has been well documented but not as much from the female point of view. Rosie provides us with the difficulties of trying to make enough money to survive, absorb the complexities of a country surviving the war and hopefully find the love of your life. None of these objectives would have been met if the writer did not articulate this as clearly and wonderfully as she does and write a mystery that keeps your turning the pages to solve. It was an honor to read this book and feel the emotions that come from the characters that lived through this very bleak time. This book is a great reflection of the best of times created out of the worst of times. Rosie is a good person trying to do what every woman in the 1940's was, have a career until she finds a husband and in the mean time solve a crime or two and Rosie is up for all of these challenges.
Mary Gramlich is The Reading Reviewer located at www.marygram
In 1943, Rosie Winter and her best friend Jayne Hamilton are elated to be back in New York following their traumatic South Pacific USO tour (see Winter in June). The pair makes a special stop in Upstate New York to pay their respects to the parents of Billy DeMille, Jayne's late fiancé who died in action two months ago.
However, the pair is stunned to learn their Billy was not the real Billy; he stole the identity of DeMille who died at Pearl harbor during the infamous attack. At the George Bernard Shaw Home for Women Pursuing Theatrical Vocations in Manhattan, Rosie shares rooms with her enemy Ruby Priest, and Jayne with eccentric Ann Fremont. They visit the apartment of the Billy they knew and find German letters written in disappearing ink and a stack of money. Jayne's mobster former boyfriend Tony is causing trouble and the two performers cannot find parts as another gangster Vinnie has blacklisted them. Finally Jack is back; apparently having deserted after being injured while at war
The latest Winter WW II drama is a superb tale as the can-can girls return home bringing alive mostly Manhattan with their lively dance steps. The mystery of "the wrong Mr. Wright is fun to follow while the two actresses struggle to find work, having been blacklisted by the Mob several years before McCarthy did likewise. Rosie is at her best as she weaves a web of lies to protect her friends only to be overwhelmed with keeping track while also trying to solve everyone's problems because everything's not coming up Rosie.
Harriet Klausner
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Posted October 9, 2011
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Overview
Back from their USO stint in the South Pacific in the fall of 1943, Rosie Winter and her best friend, Jayne, head upstate to visit the home of Jayne's recently deceased fiancé. But what they find leaves Rosie wondering if the man ever existed to begin with.
As Rosie searches for the truth behind his identity—and a way to help heal Jayne's broken heart—she faces an unpleasant homecoming of her own. The newspapers are filled with tales of saboteurs infiltrating the East Coast. Her...