Café Europa: An Edna Ferber Mystery
Ed Ifkovic
Poisoned Pen, May 5 2015, $24.95
ISBN 9781464203923
In the summer of 1914, as part of her Grand Tour, Edna Ferber,
accompanied by her friend British suffragette Winifred Moss, travels to
Budapest.
Staying in the grungy Hotel Árpád, Edna notices the fear in the
eyes of affluent American Cassandra Blaine who soon will marry Austrian Count
Frederic in a money-title exchange arranged by her wealthy parents. At the Café Europa Edna, Winifred and Hearst
Yellow Journalist Harold Gibbons discuss the once great empire teetering especially
in the Balkans, Cassandra and her fiancé, and the current mayor who calls his
city “Jewdapest”.
However, not long afterward someone kills Cassandra. Royal Hungarian Police Inspector Horvath
leads the official inquiry targeting the victim’s former
lover Hungarian Endre Molnár as the only suspect. The two visiting females
believe otherwise; and with help from local artists Lajos Tihanyi and Bertalan
Por, investigate.
The sixth Edna Ferber
historical mystery (see Final Curtain, Downtown
Strut and Escape Artist) engages the audience with a fine investigation,
a top rate cast and a deep look at the last throes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire just before events
spiral out of control. Although the
storyline too frequently turns passive with chit chats at the Café, Ed Ifkovic
authors an overall absorbing pre WWI Hungarian amateur sleuth.
Harriet Klausner
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