A young woman seeks justice based on the flimsiest of clues to the people involved in the wrong-doing. I was captivated by this old-fashioned style of telling a story in a way that draws on the characters and their actions. There's a mystery, a mild romance, and lots of suspense and adventure. An excellent tale of the MC becoming a confident adult. ( )

2023 reread via audiobook:
I am changing my previous rating of 4* to 3.5*. While I enjoyed this book, it doesn't have the same humor or quirky characters that are in Gilman's other books. On the plus side, it does have a murder mystery! ( )

Dorothy Gilman weaves a tale of murder with Amelia Jones as the crusader wanting to shine the light of justice. Suspenseful, insightful, and intriguing all the way to the finish. ( )

Really enjoyed this book and the main character. I found it to be a very engrossing mystery involving characters I was curious about. There was a gentleness to it that almost caused me to stop reading, as I'm used to gritty mysteries, but I'm glad I kept reading. I've never read anything by this author before, but I'm determined to see if her other work pleases me as much. ( )

Wow. It's very Gilman - Amelia several times conquers entirely through naively assuming she will. Including the one place where she is incredibly _stupid_, which brings on the climax. I almost put the book down at that point, but powered through instead - and once the setup was done, the story caught me up again. Very rich, very weird story, as a girl who's always been rather rootless finds the last plea of a woman who expected to be murdered - and against all odds, actually finds out what happened. She does a lot of growing up along the way, one way and another - I like Amelia at the end of the story a lot better than I liked her at the beginning. The coincidences are wild - particularly about the book (I now want to read Gilman's version of it!). A lot of fun, and I think it will definitely reward rereading (as Gilman's books usually do). The biggest question is how I managed to miss it for so long! ( )