Mysteries

By KIKI OLSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2000

Here is a quartet of mysteries, set in the days before dot-com and DNA and featuring some familiar historical characters.

THE PROBLEM OF THE EVIL EDITOR, A Charles Dodgson/Arthur Conan Doyle Mystery by Roberta Rogow (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95)

It's the winter of 1888 and the Rev. Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll, creator of Alice in Wonderland ) takes his new friend, Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, to meet his London editor. Doyle hopes to get his stories about an eccentric consulting detective and his rather thick doctor friend published. The editor is a frightful creature named Bassett who thinks Doyle's work is rubbish and has openly rejected the work of young Irish writer, Oscar Wilde. As Bassett rants and raves, there are labor riots in the streets. Bassett is murdered, and because Wilde is a socialist and the death is labor-related, he is the prime suspect. It's up to the literary duo to prove his innocence. Walk-ons by artists James Whistler and John Tenniel add color to the plot.

RATTLE HIS BONES, A Daisy Dalrymple Mystery by Carola Dunn (St. Martin's Minotaur, $22.95)

In London, 1923, journalist Daisy Dalrymple takes her nephew and future stepdaughter to the Museum of Natural History on a research trip for the articles she writes for posh publications. In the gem room, a tattered aristocrat passionately claims the jewels on display belong to his former monarchy, dissolved after World War I. When Daisy discovers Dr. Pettigrew, the keeper of minerology, dead in a pile of dinosaur bones. Daisy and her fiance, conveniently a Scotland Yard detective, investigate the rivalries that exist behind the scenes of South Kensington's venerable landmark in this fairy cake of a mystery.

THE JEKYL ISLAND CLUB by Brent Monahan (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95)

In 1899, about 100 Americans who controlled one-sixth of the nation's wealth -- Vanderbilts, Goulds, Rockefellers, Pulitzers -- invested in an idyllic island off the Georgia coast and made it their playground. At Jekyl Island, they were guaranteed old-time Southern hospitality -- anything else they needed could be imported. Just as President McKinley is about to make a visit, one of the members is shot to death. The members write it off as a "hunting accident" but Civil War veteran Sheriff John Le Burn isn't convinced and is determined to get to the bottom of the case where even J.P. Morgan is a suspect.

FORTUNE LIKE THE MOON by Alys Clare (St. Martin's Minotaur, $22.95)

In the spirit of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael, author Clare presents 12th century Abbess Helewise of Hawkenlye. One of her young nuns is found murdered, and it's believed that the killer was a fiend recently released by the new King Richard the Lion-Hearted. The murder -- and the plot to discredit the king -- is investigated by the canny abbess, who discovers life in the convent isn't as serene as it seems.

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