Roberts, Gillian. The Bluest Blood. Ballantine Books, 1998.
Reason read: to finish the series started in July. Yes, I definitely took some time off from reading the series.
Amanda Pepper is back! This time she is on the case for a different kind of mystery. Pitted against the Moral Ecologists, a group hellbent on censorship, Amanda must stop them from ruining her ability to teach English. The plot thickens early on when Reverend Harvey Spiers, leader of the Moral Ecologists, shows up at a fundraiser hosted by Edward and Theodora Roederer. The Roederers are wealthy staunch supporters of free speech and annually give a ton of money to the community, including Amanda’s prep school. First red flag? Spier’s son and Roederer’s son are close friends. Second? Jake and Griffin are in Amanda’s class. Both are angsty teens with family issues that go beyond morality and wealth. Of course, the protesting gets out of hand and someone winds up dead. But it wouldn’t be an Amanda Pepper mystery if Amanda didn’t find herself in a wee bit of danger herself.
The ongoing joke is that Amanda does not know Mackenzie’s full name so whenever she goes to introduce him to someone new she stumbles. Why she can’t call him “C.K.” is beyond me.
As an aside, the details are a little dated. This was written in an age when photoshopping the Mona Lisa with a scowl was good fun. Technology has come a long way since the days of putting grins on dogs.
Line I liked, “Sometimes a speaker needs a soliloquy” (p 74).
Playlist: the Three Tenors
Author fact: Gillian Roberts, also known as Judith Greber, wrote a bunch of Amanda Pepper books, but this is my last one for the Challenge.
Book trivia: Sasha and Amanda’s mom are repeat characters.
Nancy said: Pearl mentions Bluest Blood first when naming good Amanda Pepper mysteries.
BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Big Ten Country: the Literary Midwest (Pennsylvania)” (p 31).
~*LunaSea*~ 