Week of March 6.

Murder at the Mena House, by Erica Ruth Neubauer, is a charming mystery set in 1920’s Egypt. Besides the mystery, there is romance and a wonderful setting.

Jane Wunderly, widowed in ‘The Great War’, is on holiday with her Aunt Millie. (She is a real eccentric.) But the vacation has hardly begun when the body of a beautiful young girl is found shot to death in her room.

Since Jane is the one who finds the body, and everyone knows there was friction between her and the victim, she is instantly suspect. Deciding she needs to investigate, Jane teams up with Redvers, a handsome fellow who claims to be a banker, to solve the mystery.

Another murder occurs, and Jane begins to suspect someone is smuggling Egyptian artifacts from the country.

As in every good mystery, everyone has secrets and there are plenty of suspects. My only caveat is that, as is common with romantic suspense, Jane rushes heedlessly into danger at the drop of a hat. Still, lots of fun.

The second book for this week is Murder in the Lincoln White House by C.M. Gleason.

Another historical mystery, but quite different from the former.

At Lincoln’s inaugural ball, attended by both Union supporters and secessionists, a body is discovered in the hall outside the ballroom. Adam Quinn, a Kansas frontiersman hired to be a general assistant to the new President, is tasked with discovering the murderer.

At first Quinn wonders if Lincoln was the target but, since the victim was a passionate abolitionist, that doesn’t make sense. Emotions between the abolitionists and the secessionists run high. Seven states had already seceded from the union before Lincoln’s inauguration.

Quinn begins to wonder if the target was Mr, Lemagne, a secessionist with a beautiful daughter, who Quinn has met at the ball. The animus between the victim and Mr Lemagne was known.

Then another murder occurs; this time of one of the witnesses. Had he seen more than he at first admitted to? Have these deaths anything to do with the Baltimore plot to assassinate Lincoln, foiled at the last minute by his decision to take another route? And is the new president, reviled by most of the slave states as ‘that rail-splitter’, at the center of the murders?

Fascinating.