Another Barbara Michaels: Smoke and Mirrors. It's connected to the Georgetown trilogy I reviewed earlier but not part of it; one of the minor characters from the trilogy makes an appearance in this book. It was rather an apposite read; it's set during a Senatorial election.

Young Erin Hartsock has taken a job in Washington following the death of her father, and the loss of the family income which leads to her mother moving in with her unmarried sister. Erin is persuaded to meet an old college friend of her mother - Congresswoman Rosemary White Marshall who is running for the Senate. Joining the campaign sets in motion a fire bug and murder; this has roots in the past and the reason the Hartsocks moved out West when Erin was a little girl.

Undemanding.

Another Barbara Michaels: Smoke and Mirrors. It's connected to the Georgetown trilogy I reviewed earlier but not part of it; one of the minor characters from the trilogy makes an appearance in this book. It was rather an apposite read; it's set during a Senatorial election.

Young Erin Hartsock has taken a job in Washington following the death of her father, and the loss of the family income which leads to her mother moving in with her unmarried sister. Erin is persuaded to meet an old college friend of her mother - Congresswoman Rosemary White Marshall who is running for the Senate. Joining the campaign sets in motion a fire bug and murder; this has roots in the past and the reason the Hartsocks moved out West when Erin was a little girl.

Undemanding.

Smoke and Mirrors, by Barbara Michaels, is a multiple-time re-read for me; I first encountered Ms. Michaels (aka Elizabeth Peters) in the early 1980s and have read just about everything she's written - and re-read a fair number of them too. This one is particularly apt during an election season, as the setting is that of a US Senate campaign in about 1988. Young Erin Hartsock goes to work for charismatic Congresswoman Rosemary Marshall, who has given up her cozy seat in the House to run for Senate. But mysterious occurrences - the appearance of a sinister "poppet," several small fires - start to plague the campaign, and Erin and Nick McDermott, campaign media consultant and love interest, must try to determine what in Rosemary's past is returning to haunt her, before those minor incidents turn deadly.... Michaels' writing is a pleasing mixture of humour, romance and gothic suggestion, but what I especially enjoy about this book is the political angle. For example, at one point Rosemary rails against PACs: "....in actual fact, PACs were set up to get around the laws limiting the amount of individual campaign contributions. If I could afford it, I'd refuse to take PAC money, even from organizations whose aims I would ordinarily support...." Wonder what she would make of today's Super-PACs! ( )