From Publishers Weekly
Like its predecessors (Murder in the Map Room, etc.), this latest (and posthumously published) mystery by the son of Eleanor and Franklin portrays the First Lady engaged in D.C. crime fighting while carrying out her White House duties. When Sargent Peavy, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, is found murdered in his Georgetown home, police detective Lt. Edward Kennelly arrests Peavy's lover, Jessica, a staff member in Louisiana Senator Huey Long's office. The First Lady, who placed Jessica in Long's office, doubts the girl's guilt. She works with Kennelly to find out if Jessica really did shoot the man. After learning that Peavy had broken off with Jessica because his wife strongly objected to the affair, they hear rumors that he had taken up with a stunning, mysterious woman who has caught the eye of even Joe Kennedy. When a hitman is killed with the same pistol that shot Peavy, the mob connection adds a new element to the puzzle. While publicly entertaining celebrities such as H.L. Mencken, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers, Eleanor goes undercover to interrogate suspects and does her own brand of cerebral sleuthing with the help of a chalkboard listing of possible motives. Fans who enjoy constant name-dropping and tidbits about the famous and infamous won't mind the cardboard characters or thin plot, as long as FDR and Missy end up in bed together and Eleanor and Lorena Hickock exchange at least one steamy note. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From School Library Journal
-Eleanor Roosevelt comes to the rescue of a lovely young woman who is wrongly accused of murder. As the First Lady investigates the circumstances surrounding the crime, readers discover that she has helped to place the accused in a job where she can spy on the President's rivals. Through personal interactions among the Roosevelts, their staff, friends, and business associates, readers are treated to unique insights into the White House in the 1930s. New Deal history comes alive as do famous personalities in this easy-to-read mystery. Despite a pat ending, this entertaining whodunit is an enjoyable read.Anita Short, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews
Murder In Georgetown ($23.95; Oct. 1; 256 pp.; 0-312-24221-2) Another trip to the author's posthumous vault takes his mother, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Murder in the Map Room, 1998, etc.), back to 1935, when Federal Reserve governor Sargent Peavy is murdered. Eleanor, taking the word of his distraught lover, Huey Long staffer Jessica Dee, over that of the officers who arrested her, snoops discreetly into the case on her considerable own. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

It's early in 1935, and Washington, D.C. is enjoying a mild winter. But from the bleak expression on the face of Eleanor Roosevelt's young friend Jessica Dee, as she sits across from the First Lady in a shapeless prison dress, Mrs. Roosevelt can almost believe that a frigid chill has enveloped the nation's capital. Jessica, a beautiful young Jewish woman who was smuggled out of Poland as a child, has been accused of murder. One of her lovers, Sargent Peavy, a member of the Federal Treasury Board, has been found dead of a gunshot wound in his Georgetown townhouse.. "Despite the evidence against her, Mrs. Roosevelt refuses to believe that Jessica could be guilty of murder. Not only is she a personal friend, but Jessica has proven invaluable to Mrs. Roosevelt's husband, the President, by passing along information gleaned while working as a secretary in the office of FDR's most potent political rival. Senator Huey Long, the Kingfish. Determined to clear Jessica's name by solving the crime, Mrs. Roosevelt uncovers a trail of deceit and greed that leads all the way to the privileged world of Boston banking and the dark underworld of the Irish mob, her every move shadowed by a notorious female assassin whose calling card is a fiery mane of hair.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

Eleanor the Private Eye is utterly endearing.

Publishers Weekly

Like its predecessors (Murder in the Map Room, etc.), this latest (and posthumously published) mystery by the son of Eleanor and Franklin portrays the First Lady engaged in D.C. crime fighting while carrying out her White House duties. When Sargent Peavy, a member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, is found murdered in his Georgetown home, police detective Lt. Edward Kennelly arrests Peavy's lover, Jessica, a staff member in Louisiana Senator Huey Long's office. The First Lady, who placed Jessica in Long's office, doubts the girl's guilt. She works with Kennelly to find out if Jessica really did shoot the man. After learning that Peavy had broken off with Jessica because his wife strongly objected to the affair, they hear rumors that he had taken up with a stunning, mysterious woman who has caught the eye of even Joe Kennedy. When a hitman is killed with the same pistol that shot Peavy, the mob connection adds a new element to the puzzle. While publicly entertaining celebrities such as H.L. Mencken, W.C. Fields and the Marx Brothers, Eleanor goes undercover to interrogate suspects and does her own brand of cerebral sleuthing with the help of a chalkboard listing of possible motives. Fans who enjoy constant name-dropping and tidbits about the famous and infamous won't mind the cardboard characters or thin plot, as long as FDR and Missy end up in bed together and Eleanor and Lorena Hickock exchange at least one steamy note. (Oct.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Murder In Georgetown ( Oct. 1; 256 pp.; 0-312-24221-2) Another trip to the author's posthumous vault takes his mother, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (Murder in the Map Room, 1998, etc.), back to 1935, when Federal Reserve governor Sargent Peavy is murdered. Eleanor, taking the word of his distraught lover, Huey Long staffer Jessica Dee, over that of the officers who arrested her, snoops discreetly into the case on her considerable own.