Mrs. Roosevelt's Confidante: A Maggie Hope Mystery

Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante by Susan Elia MacNeal is the fifth book in the Maggie Hope Mystery series. Maggie Hope is traveling with Prime Minister Winston Churchill as his typist. At least that is the official story. Unofficially, she is on assignment (she is spy). Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt mentions that she is worried about her secretary, Blanche Balfour. Blanche failed to show up for work or to call. Churchill asks Maggie to assist the First Lady. They go to Blanche’s apartment and find her dead in the tub. It looks like a suicide. Maggie quickly hustles Mrs. Roosevelt out of the apartment (after snagging a tablet) and anonymously calls the police (something you could still do in the 40’s). Someone had written a note, but it was missing. Maggie was able to use a pencil and see what was written. The contents of the note would compromise Mrs. Roosevelt (and ruin what Churchill and FDR are trying to accomplish). Churchill assigns Maggie to the First Lady to investigate what really happened to Blanche.

Wendell Cotton is a (African-American) man on death row at Thomas Jefferson Prison in Virginia. Many people that Mr. Cotton did not get a fair trial including Mrs. Roosevelt. Eleanor is working with Andrea Martin from the Workers Defense League to get Wendell a retrial. Someone is trying to keep Mrs. Roosevelt quiet. Will Maggie be able to find out who in time?

There is too much going on in Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante. It is at the beginning of World War II for the United States. We have a murder, the war, the US, the British, the Germans, prisoners of war, and rockets (I only gave a brief synopsis and focused on the mystery). There are many characters and it is extremely difficult to keep them all straight (maybe when I was younger). I found the novel hard to get through. I found the mystery simple to solve (much to my disappointment). I have not read any other books in this series (and I am not likely to either). Maybe if I had read the other books, I would understand the series better. The novel is left unfinished. We have to wait until the next book to find out about the rockets and the missing German prisoner. I give Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante 3 out of 5 stars. Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante was just not the novel for me.

I received a complimentary copy of Mrs. Roosevelt’s Confidante in exchange for an honest review.