Ella Shane Mystery

It's easy to be overlooked in Gilded Age Manhattan, but the Ella Shane Opera Company's latest premier manages to attract adoring crowds, rave reviews, and a killer who's a real showstopper! New York City, Fall 1899. Ahead-of-her-time coloratura mezzo Ella Shane has always known opening night to be a mess of missed cues and jittery nerves, especially when unveiling a new opera. Her production of The Princes in the Tower, based on the mysterious disappearance of Edward IV's two sons during the Wars of the Roses in England, concludes its first performance to thunderous applause. It's not until players take their bows that the worst kind of disaster strikes . . . Flawless basso Albert Reuter is found lurched over a bloody body in his dressing room, seemingly taking inspiration from his role as the murderous Richard III. With a disturbing homicide case stealing the spotlight, Ella can't be so certain Albert is the one who belongs behind bars . . . Now, Ella must think on her feet while sorting out a wild series of puzzling mishaps and interlocking mysteries. Yet even when sided with her aristocratic beau, does this scrappy diva have the chops to upstage the true criminal, or will this be the last time she headlines a Broadway marquee?

During the first winter of the twentieth century, Gilded Age trouser diva Ella Shane refuses to dim the lights on her dazzling show business career for marriage-even to a dashing British duke. But the versatile mezzo-soprano may have to put it all on the line once murder takes centerstage... New York City, 1900. Renowned opera singer and theatre company owner Ella may have both much to gain and much to lose by getting engaged to her courtly long-distance love, Gil Saint Auburn. But there's little time for romance or resolutions with Gil's aristocratic mother and aunts visiting Greenwich Village-especially when the ladies discover a dead man in the bathtub of their hotel suite. The victim's disturbing background and subsequent demise at the elegant Waverly Place Hotel leave the group puzzled beyond the obvious certainty of an unnatural death. Adding to the confusion and mounting fear, danger explodes through Ella's close-knit circle after a friend makes a stunning confession and Gil becomes a fresh target for violence. Now, with a London tour run fast approaching, prenuptial worries weighing heavily on her heart, and an intricate Joan of Arc aria to rehearse, can Ella decide what she's willing to sacrifice before confronting a relentless criminal bent on watching her entire life go up in smoke?

Newly married Gilded Age diva Ella Shane and her Duke return to New York for Ella's Metropolitan Opera debut, and his investigation of a decades-old mystery that could threaten the succession to the British Throne-only to be drawn into a blackmail plot closer to home. Now, Ella and Gil will have to figure out what happened when the Prince of Wales visited the City in 1860...and protect a friend who is trying to maintain a family connection with his brother, a man who is living as a woman. And protect themselves, too, because people connected to the Prince's story keep ending up dead. With real history as a jumping-off point, it's an unexpected adventure that keeps the entire cast guessing, and in danger, until the final twist.