Belle Ruin (Emma Graham Series #3)

by Martha Grimes

Overview

A waitress at her mother's decaying resort hotel, twelve-year-old Emma now has a second job as the youngest cub reporter in the history of La Porte's Conservative newspaper. But when she discovers the crumbling shell of a fabulous hotel- the once-sumptuous Belle Rouen-in the woods near her small town of Spirit Lake, Emma never imagines that the mysteries it holds will bring her one step closer to solving a forty-year-old crime-and force a new transgression to light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451219442
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/05/2006
Series:	Emma Graham Series , #3
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	384
Sales rank:	516,557
Product dimensions:	5.22(w) x 7.91(h) x 0.79(d)
Age Range:	18 - 17 Years

About the Author

Martha Grimes is the bestselling author of eighteen Richard Jury mysteries and also the acclaimed fiction Foul Matter, Cold Flat Junction, Hotel Paradise, The End of the Pier, and The Train Now Departing.

Hometown:

Washington, DC and Santa Fe, NM

Date of Birth:

May 2, 1931

Place of Birth:

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Education:

B.A., M.A., University of Maryland

Website:

http://www.marthagrimes.com

Editorial Reviews

Sometimes little Emma Graham is almost too precocious. When not waitressing at her mother's decaying resort hotel, 12-year-old Emma walks the beat as the youngest cub reporter in the history of the local newspaper. Her irrepressible sleuthing leads her deep into the woods near Spirit Lake, where she discovers the crumbling remains of a sumptuous grand hotel. On the scent of a scoop, she begins probing the hidden history of the vacation palace, uncovering secrets buried deep inside the Belle Rouen's burned ruins.

Grimes saves her loveliest writing for the gloomy images of empty train stations and tumbledown houses in which Emma takes such melancholy pleasure. But there's also an explosive comic exuberance to the scenes of Emma's high jinks around town and at her mother's hotel, a rich source for the oddball characters who give these novels their charm. Not all of them are pushovers for Emma, master manipulator though she may be, and it's a treat to watch her invent increasingly exotic alcoholic concoctions to pry information out of 91-year-old Aurora Paradise, who lives on the top floor of the hotel. The Paradise garage is also fertile territory for amusement, especially when it's turned into the rehearsal hall for a version of ''Medea'' that Emma's brother and a friend who admires Spike Jones are earnestly setting to music.
— The New York Times

Marilyn Stasio

Spirit Lake has some deep, dark secrets, and the heroine of Grimes's new series, spunky, precocious 12-year-old Emma Graham, is determined to uncover them, no matter the cost. Kim Mai Guest's delicate voice makes listeners believe that the young narrator really is a teenager, albeit one with extraordinary gifts of perception. Guest never overdoes characterizations in the third of Emma Graham's escapades. As the irrepressible Emma investigates Belle Rouen, a once ornate, now burned-out mansion, Guest endows her with all the curiosity of a natural snoop trying to put together the pieces of a forty-year-old unsolved puzzle. Martha Grimes creates an atypical mystery adventure, and Guest's performance makes its heroine judicious and delightful. S.J.H. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

DEC 05/JAN 06 - AudioFile