Murder In The East Room

The Story

In this, the twelfth detective novel written by Elliott Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt is the First Lady of crime detection steadfastly seeking to protect the innocent and punish the guilty. The year is 1940. Great Britain is withdrawing its expeditionary force from the beaches at Dunkirk. American isolationists openly predict that Hitler will invade and conquer England before the summer is over. The biggest question in the U.S.: Will Franklin D. Roosevelt seek an unprecendented third term as President of the United States? A State dinner at the White House. White tie. Vance Gibson, a handsome, up-and-coming senator, perhaps with presidential ambitions of his own, leaves his table, complaining he is ill. His wife, Amelia, rises and follows him. A few minutes later the entire White House rings with anguished screams. Running into the East Room, Mrs. Roosevelt follows just behind the Secret Service men who find Senator Gibson lying dead on the floor in a pool of blood. His shrieking wife kneels beside him, his blood soaking her gown. Once again, Mrs. Roosevelt assumes the now-familiar role given to her by her son Elliott. In her own inimitable way, the First Lady turned sleuth gets to the bottom of a complex, intriguing political mystery.