The Alpine Advocate

MURDER HITS THE FRONT PAGE

With a full year as publisher-editor of the Alpine Advocate under her belt, Emma Lord feels fine about her move to this small town in the foothills of Washington's Cascade Mountains. But what the paper badly needs is a big story, and she gets one--in spades.

Handsome Mark Doukas, grandson of rich, old Neeny Doukas, is murdered, and the murderer is probably Neeny's only other grandson, black sheep Chris. Even in a family that has never lacked for scandal, that's news; and Emma and her assistant, Vida, who is a walking encyclopedia of local secrets, make the most of it.

But trying to get straight answers out of Neeny and his thin-lipped son, and even Neeny's brainless bimbo of a mistress, is like poking a nest of rattlesnakes: deadly dangerous. What begins with an innocent, if inaccurate, story about Mark Doukas in the Advocate ends with Emma conducting the most interesting, and probably the last, interview of her career from the wrong end of a .38....