Mary Daheim - The Alpine Legacy

THE ALPINE ADVOCATE

An intriguing mystery novel.

M. K. W REN

THE ALPINE BETRAYAL

Editor-publisher Emma Lord finds out that running a small-town newspaper is worse than nuttyit's downright dangerous. Readers will take great pleasure in Mary Daheim's new mystery.

C AROLYN G. H ART

THE ALPINE CHRISTMAS

If you like cozy mysteries, you need to try Daheim's Alpine series. Recommended.

The Snooper

THE ALPINE DECOY

[A] fabulous series Fine examples of the traditional, domestic mystery.

Mystery Lovers Bookshop News

THE ALPINE FURY

An excellent small-town background, a smoothly readable style, a sufficiently complex plot involving a local family bank, and some well-realized characters.

Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine

THE ALPINE GAMBLE

Scintillating. If you haven't visited Alpine yet, it would be a good gamble to give this one a try.

The Armchair Detective

THE ALPINE ICON

Very funny.

The Seattle Times

THE ALPINE JOURNEY

Seattle super mystery writer Mary Daheim is back again in The Alpine Journey, a very compelling tenth entry in the wonderful Emma Lord series. A dark and complicated plot is a great addition to this winning series.

Mystery Scene

THE ALPINE KINDRED

Witty one-liners and amusing characterizations.

Publishers Weekly

W HERE DID E MMA Lord go wrong?

Middle-class, educated, entrepreneurial, Lord has all the qualifications for leaving her mark on Skykomish County. Instead, she's taken the easy, craven, and commercial way out by publishing the conservative, knee-jerk, reactionary Alpine Advocate.

Emma Lord would like you to believe that her editorials (mealymouthed if well-mannered essays describes them better) have helped create progress and change in Alpine.

Not so. She has been a stumbling block, a lumplike obstacle, an entrenched self-serving member of the establishment who literally sleeps with the enemy. After nine years as The Advocate's editor-publisher, Lord has nothing to show for her tenure except (we suspect) a fat bank account.

Let's look at the facts:

Alpine, Washington, is a small logging community of four thousand inhabitants, with perhaps another twenty-five hundred in surrounding Skykomish County. Some might even refer to our craggy corner of the Pacific Northwest as backward, isolated, and out of touch with contemporary issues and ideas.

They're right.

Alpine's Northern Europeanspecifically, Scandinavianheritage encourages clinging to the past and resisting the future. Founded as a logging community before World War I, the town was almost wiped out when the original mill was shut down in 1929. Fortunately, there were at least two risk-takers who saved Alpine by building a ski lodge and encouraging sports enthusiasts to take to our snow-covered slopes.

When logging was resumed during and after World War II, the town grew, even flourished. By the late Seventies, commuters from as far away as Everett moved into the area, creating a broader economic and social base. Then, when the ravagers and pillagers of the woods met their match in farsighted environmentalists, Alpine floundered once again. With only one small mill still in operation, the town began to slide back into history.

Luckily, there were a few visionaries to save Alpine again, this time with the construction of Skykomish Community College. The opening of the two-year school has not only brought much-needed life into the area, but ethnic diversity. A las, there are too many old-timers who resent these newcomers whose skin is a different color and whose names don't end in son or sen.

As Alpine undergoes yet another major shift in its socioeconomic configuration, nothing has really changed. Regressive thinkers still seem to be in the vanguard. Let's look at three nagging issues that have failed to be addressed despite urgent needs:

1. Shutting down all logging operations in Skykomish County. We are at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Why are we still cutting trees? What little old-growth timber is left will surely fall in the next decade. Emma Lord exudes sympathy for the loggers, patting these timber rapists on the head, and mewling about how hard it is for them to change jobs because their so-called livelihood has been handed down from father to son ad nauseam.

2. Hiring a new doctor to replace Peyton Flake. The county commissioners have delayed decision-making, mainly because they're a trio of senile incompetents. While medical science doesn't have all the answers, health care in this county has deteriorated. So, apparently, has Lord's brain, since she makes only an occasional bleat on the editorial page about hiring a qualified physician. Her lack of vervenot to mention nerveis enough to make this reader sickexcept that if I were, I couldn't get an appointment for six weeks.

3. Creating a shelter for battered and abused women. This project falls under the aegis of local church leaders, none of whom seems capable of doing anything but praying for guidance on this matter, a direct quote from the Lutherans' Donald Nielsen. The need for a shelter has been evident for years, even before my arrival in Alpine. Reluctance to provide funding or merely to determine a site indicates the status of women in this community. The town, the county, and its environs are under the collective thumbs of a male-dominated society. Historically, the men at the helm of Skykomish County have shown a complete disregard for females, as they continue operating in a nineteenth-century time warp. They are a disgrace, and should have been removed from power thirty years ago. What is even more disturbing is that the one woman who is in a position of influence refuses to act.

Emma Lord should put her tawdry little newspaper up for sale and get out of town. She is a blot on the community, and a pariah among her own sex.

C RYSTAL B IRD ,
editor and publisher of Crystal Clear,
an independent publication dedicated to progress and unity