An atmospheric historical mystery where every character has their own agenda, and their own truth.
In the fashionable mansions on Chestnut Hill, a simple green baize door separates the masters’ world from the servants’. That door is thrown wide when an elderly housekeeper is found brutally murdered on the first day of the new century. Marie Chevalier, the housekeeper’s poor but ambitious granddaughter, and James Lett, the mansion owner’s kind but indolent son, suspect the killer is connected to one of their families—but which one?
From drawing rooms to alleyways, their separate investigations lead them through the sometimes lavish, sometimes brutal, landscape of turn-of-the-century New England. When long-buried secrets begin to unravel the fragile threads that hold both households together, Marie and James must find a way to bridge the gulf between them—if only to prove that the murderer belongs not to their own world, but to that strange and foreign land on the other side of the green baize door.
Inspired by real-life events, The Green Baize Door is a richly layered historical mystery that explores themes of class identity, family loyalty, and the sometimes blurry line between virtue and vice.
Excerpt
The Opening
Chapter 1 — November 24, 1899. Six Weeks Before the Murder
The carriage was a country vehicle in the least flattering sense of the word. Wind and wet sputtered through great gaps between the windows and doors, and the cabin contained several well-used fur blankets that reeked of mildew and wet dog. The exterior had once been painted beetle-black, but rust from the undercarriage was gradually overtaking it, mapping the darkness with winding orange rivers and flaking continents. Inside, the walls and seats were upholstered in a bristling raspberry velvet that, over its many years of service, had gone a grayish brown where the springs pressed through.
James Lett, Jamie to his friends, wiped at the foggy window pane with his handkerchief and peered outside. "At this speed," he said, turning to the carriage's only other occupant, "we may as well have walked from the station. Does the fellow think he's being paid by the hour?"
Manassas Edmunds, Chief Financial Officer of the Keystone Lumber Company, shrugged. "Better to go slow than to get stuck in the mud and have to wait for rescue."
Jamie frowned. The old fellow wasn't wrong; the rain, which was coming down in torrents, had saturated the iron-rich embankment, and with each step, the horses sank to their fetlocks in mud as thick as potter's clay. Jamie sighed and slumped back into his seat. "Remind me, what's our itinerary?"
"We ride to Conifer tomorrow morning," Manassas answered. "You do the inspection tour while I review the ledgers."
"Mph," Jamie grunted. Inspection tours were typically less inspection and more tour, as it took a special kind of idiot to show the owner's son their blunders. It would be awkward, but at least it would end with a feast—they usually did. Famished and half-frozen as Jamie was, the thought of a hot meal could tempt him almost anywhere.
"You'll be fine," Manassas reassured him. "Your father just wants you to show your face. Let the men see the heir apparent."
Jamie turned back toward the window to hide his annoyance. He knew perfectly well what his father wanted, and, if you asked him, the Captain, as the men called him, was being damn foolish. Union agitators, and the rash of strikes that followed them, had been splashed across the front pages of the newspapers for months—first with the miners in Idaho and now with the newsboys in the City. It had the old man spooked, but if trouble was brewing, giving the millworkers a glimpse of his face would hardly hold it at bay.
If anyone else had been in the carriage, Jamie would have said as much outright, but Manassas was a company man to the marrow. He had been his father's friend and bookkeeper for as long as Jamie could remember and was incapable of entertaining the notion that the Captain could be wrong.
For the hundredth time that morning, Jamie wondered how he had allowed himself to be talked into this trip. A man whose appetite for nature was sated by a half-hour's walk in Central Park had no business boarding the eight o'clock Mohawk and Malone for an expedition into the wilds of Upstate New York. And yet, here he was, inching through a muddy wasteland in a carriage that should have been sold as scrap a generation ago. Jamie sighed and settled deeper into his seat. There was nothing to be done for it now, and he would have to get through the next few weeks as best he may.
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Eleanor Birney
Eleanor Birney writes historical mysteries about class, moral ambiguity, and people who aren’t satisfied with life on their side of the green baize door.
She received a BA in History from UC Berkeley, and works as a legal research attorney, a day job that feeds her love of precision, research, and puzzles.
Growing up in foster care gave her a lifelong fascination with the way society steers people into assigned places—and how some of those people refuse to stay in them.
She lives in Northern California with her family. The Green Baize Door is her debut novel.
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