A House on the Hill
The second Green Baize Door Mystery. Reads as a standalone.
On her wedding night, Marie Chevalier became three things: a wife, a widow, and the prime suspect.
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The Green Baize Door Mysteries
A House on the Hill
San Francisco, 1904. Marie Chevalier is a poor but ambitious young actress who believes her luck has finally turned when, after a whirlwind romance, she marries Magnus Able — a wealthy older man with a magnetic personality and a mysterious past. But when Magnus is murdered on their wedding night, Marie becomes the prime suspect.
Convinced the killer's motive lies buried in Magnus's murky past, Marie and her firebrand sister, Eliza, set out to uncover the secret life of the husband Marie never got the chance to know. Together, they journey from the glamorous heights of Nob Hill to the seedy depths of the Barbary Coast on their quest to clear Marie's name and find a killer.
The second Green Baize Door Mystery. Reads as a standalone.
The Green Baize Door
Philadelphia, 1900. In the fashionable mansions on Chestnut Hill, a simple green baize door separates the masters' world from the servants'. That door is thrown wide when an elderly housekeeper is found brutally murdered on the first day of the new century. Marie Chevalier, the housekeeper's poor but ambitious granddaughter, and James Lett, the mansion owner's kind but indolent son, suspect the killer is connected to one of their families — but which one?
From drawing rooms to alleyways, their separate investigations lead them through the sometimes lavish, sometimes brutal, landscape of turn-of-the-century America. When long-buried secrets begin to unravel the fragile threads that hold both households together, Marie and James must find a way to bridge the gulf between them — if only to prove that the murderer belongs not to their own world, but to that strange and foreign land on the other side of the green baize door.
Now in a second edition with a new closing chapter.
On both sides of the door
In every great house there is a green baize door — the dividing line between the servants' world and the masters'. The Green Baize Door Mysteries live on both sides of it.
America, 1900. Fortunes are made overnight and unmade by morning, half the country is reinventing itself somewhere west, and decisions are made in great houses where a servant hears everything worth knowing. From Philadelphia's tenements to Nob Hill's mansions, these are classic fair-play whodunits.
At the center of the series is a circle of four: Marie Chevalier, an actress with more past than she can afford; her firebrand sister, Eliza; Jamie Lett, heir to a ruined fortune, rebuilding it plank by plank; and his sister, Melly, a New Woman with finishing-school manners and the soul of a horse trader — as their paths cross, part, and tangle with murder from one coast to the other.
Each novel is a complete mystery, solvable by the reader and solved by the end. Begin anywhere. The door is always open.
About Eleanor Birney
Eleanor Birney writes historical mysteries about class, moral ambiguity, and people who aren't satisfied with life on their side of the green baize door. She holds a BA in History from UC Berkeley and works as a legal research attorney, a day job that feeds her love of precision, research, and puzzles. Growing up in foster care gave her a lifelong fascination with the way society steers people into assigned places — and how some of those people refuse to stay in them. She lives in Northern California with her partner and three young sons.
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Occasional notes on the research, the questions, and the quiet corners that shape these books — along with news of what's next. No noise. No schedule. Just when there's something to pass on.
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