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    The Impersonator: A Mystery
    Unavailable
    The Impersonator: A Mystery
    Unavailable
    The Impersonator: A Mystery
    Ebook400 pages6 hours

    The Impersonator: A Mystery

    By Mary Miley

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    In 1917, Jessie Carr, fourteen years old and sole heiress to her family's vast fortune, disappeared without a trace. Now, years later, her uncle Oliver Beckett thinks he's found her: a young actress in a vaudeville playhouse is a dead ringer for his missing niece. But when Oliver confronts the girl, he learns he's wrong. Orphaned young, Leah's been acting since she was a toddler.

    Oliver, never one to miss an opportunity, makes a proposition—with his coaching, Leah can impersonate Jessie, claim the fortune, and split it with him. The role of a lifetime, he says. A one-way ticket to Sing Sing, she hears. But when she's let go from her job, Oliver's offer looks a lot more appealing. Leah agrees to the con, but secretly promises herself to try and find out what happened to the real Jessie. There's only one problem: Leah's act won't fool the one person who knows the truth about Jessie's disappearance.

    Set against a Prohibition-era backdrop of speakeasies and vaudeville houses, Mary Miley's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition winner The Impersonator will delight readers with its elaborate mystery and lively prose.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateSep 17, 2013
    ISBN9781250028174
    Unavailable
    The Impersonator: A Mystery
    Author

    Mary Miley

    Mary Miley grew up in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and Virginia, and worked her way through the College of William and Mary in Virginia as a costumed tour guide at Colonial Williamsburg. As Mary Miley Theobald, she has published numerous nonfiction books and articles on history, travel and business topics. As Mary Miley, she is the author of the award-winning Roaring Twenties mystery series. The Mystic's Accomplice is the first in the brand-new 1920s Chicago-set Maddie Pastore mystery series.

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    Reviews for The Impersonator

    4/5

    6 ratings10 reviews

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    • 3/5
      There was lots to like about this book (especially in the narrated Audible version), but in the end it's just a high 3 for me--I'm certainly not going to run around recommending it, or wait on tenterhooks for upcoming tomes from the same author. But it was a fun, enjoyable read, so a "high 3" on the scale.

      Quibbles: yes, the main character was a bit Mary-Sue-ish, and it's hard to accept some aspects of the central premise (I know if I showed up after a bazillion year absence, I'd been Apologizing like crazy for making everyone think I was dead, something that never happened here, and I couldn't get over the protagonist, her uncle, and the author's belief that if one can account fully for one's actions in the last seven years, and prove it, then one will automatically be accepted as a completely different person prior to the last seven years--it maketh no sense.

      The baddie in the book was so easy to spot I was hopeful the author was tricking me, but no. And it could have gone faster, but maybe that's just because of the mode in which I was reading the story.
    • 4/5
      (Fiction, Roaring Twenties Mystery #1)Shades of Brat Farrar! In the 1920s Oliver Carr, an uncle to missing heiress Jessie, approaches vaudeville actress Leah Randall with a proposition: impersonate the missing woman, for whom she is a dead ringer, with the aid of his coaching, and split the fortune.Well thought out and suspenseful.4 stars
    • 3/5
      Interesting characters and well written dialog. Obvious plot. Drat. I wanted to like this more.
    • 4/5
      Leah is a down and out vaudeville performer when she is approached by a man named Oliver who wants her to impersonate his missing niece in order to collect the family fortune. The missing niece, Jessie Carr, is days away from being declared legally dead and time is running short. Leah reluctantly agrees and uses her actress abilities to carry off the deception. In fact she is so good that the only person she can't fool is the one person who knows the truth about what really happened to Jessie. As time goes on Leah feels a connection to Jessie and sets out to prove what really happened to her.I really enjoyed this book. Leah/Jessie is so likable and the book had a winning dose of mystery and romance which added to it's appeal. The cherry on top was the 1920's setting. I loved the descriptions of vaudeville, prohibition, and Jessie's favorite Venetian glass beads. The only nitpick I have is with a bit of unlikely coincidence at the end. It ties things up a little too neatly and leaves the reader with a feeling of what were the chances of that. Even so I still look forward to reading the second novel in this series, Silent Murders.
    • 3/5
      This is book one in a new series; book 2 has been released, "Silent Murders". In "The Impersonator" a mid 20's vaudeville actress/singer/dancer/magician's assistant is approached by a well dressed gentleman and offered tons of money to impersonate a long-missing heiress. She declines, loses her job soon after, then accepts the gentleman's offer. Next steps include facing a gauntlet of trust attorneys, followed soon after by a number of "cousins", very upset with the prospect of foregoing their long anticipated inheritances. Within days, Jessie begins experiencing a number of close calls."The Impersonator" is well written with an interesting plot and well developed characters. The author, Mary Miley, has done a good job of researching the era, and the setting feels right. But it also feels like a two hour TV movie with a nice balance of romance and mystery and tension, a movie that I've seen a few times.Although there are a number o nicely done little twists, and a well done major twist toward the end, I never could really get into this book. I could read it only in short batches, then would turn to something else. It reminded me that no matter how good a TV movie is, it is still only a TV movie and will never win an Oscar. "The Impersonator" is entertaining, but not Oscar material.
    • 5/5
      I have long been an admirer of plots revolving around an impersonator-- like Josephine Tey's Brat Farrar-- so I looked forward to reading this book with a great deal of anticipation. I was not disappointed. Mary Miley has written an exceptional book filled with the history of vaudeville, the sights and sounds of the 1920s, and one very fascinating character in Leah Randall. As the novel begins, Leah is very much a product of her vaudeville upbringing: free from prejudice, fast off the mark with the latest slang or quip, quick at reading people and at thinking through the consequences of her actions... well, most of the time. Her jobless situation makes her desperate enough to underestimate the slimy Oliver Beckett. Desperation can do that to even the most honest of people. The Impersonator works because Leah is always such a believable and sympathetic character. She may have the lead role in "She Stoops to Con," but she remains truthful to herself about what she's doing. As Leah stays at the family compound in Oregon, she disappears more completely into her role as Jessie, and her speech and a few mannerisms begin to change. Her attitude towards some of the family members begins to change as well-- including how she feels about Jessie, whom Leah knows must be dead: "I had come to think of myself as her stand-in, her understudy, called up to take the part she couldn't finish. Jessie had crept under my skin. I cared for her. I wanted to know who had killed her. I wanted someone to pay for the crime." But there's a major impediment to Leah's finding Jessie's killer: she can't investigate her own murder. Part of the enjoyment in reading The Impersonator lies in watching Leah invent reasons to do things that will help her in proving the murderer's identity. You see, it's not that difficult to deduce who did it. The problem-- and the danger-- lies in proving it. I enjoyed this book from first page to last, and I look forward to reading more of Leah Randall's adventures. From working with vaudevillians the likes of Jack Benny and Milton Berle to impersonating an heiress. What next? Hollywood?
    • 4/5
      A consistently entertaining read where the author's love of the 1920s comes through loud and clear--Miley includes an abundance of vivid historical details that really make the era and place come alive in the mind of the reader. The vaudeville history is especially fun, and Leah is a great protagonist who mostly manages to stay on the right side of the fine line between plucky and obnoxious.

      The mystery plot unfortunately stumbles a bit towards the end of the book, with a predictable resolution that leaves a lot of interesting plot threads unexplored. I haven't read Brat Farrar, the Josephine Tey book that inspired this one, so I don't know how much of that is due to Miley attempting to stick closely to that book's plot. Still, I would gladly recommend this book to the majority of historical fiction fans!
    • 4/5
      Due to copy and paste, formatting has been lost.Off stage, we are not respectable, like gypsies or immigrants.I requested The Impersonator on a whim, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was an enjoyable read. I don't usually read adult books, so it was a (sort of) new experience. Right off, I'll tell you that I liked Leah's maturity, because it's something that we just don't often see in YA literature.Leah was a good character for me. She was spunky and smart - her sleuthing was amazing. Every idea that she came up with about "Jessie" was spot on. I could imagine every one of those scenarios happening, and that made me like her more. She had common sense! I can say, however, that I felt kind of bad for her. I got past it, but... her struggles in "vaudeville" were so honestly and openly portrayed. It wasn't all fun and games, though, and I liked that. She was very brave.It really surprised me when she took the job, though. Henry was so creepy when he talked to her, and she seemed so determined to stay out of it. But I was glad that she took it, in the end. It made for a good story, and she was good for it.I enjoyed the crime level - the suspense was balanced out perfectly with the normal, every day moments. I was never bored, neither was I bowled over by action. Like I said, perfect blend! I was constantly trying to figure out the who-done-it part of the mystery; and there were several times where I questioned myself about Jessie. Did I truly think she was dead? I had to hold out for the ending to see, and sometimes it was downright hard. But in the end, I was happy with it. Every little plot point added up. (Psst... what a surprise ending, though! Never saw it coming.)The atmosphere was what really took the cake, though! I love the little glimpses into 1920's society, and I loved that everything was just so... true sounding. I just couldn't get enough of it. All in all, I would definitely recommend The Impostor to you guys. It was a nice change from the norm, and I really enjoyed it!
    • 4/5
      Leah/Jesse is such a fun, quirky and lovable character. First person narrations are sometimes hard to pull off but it works so well in this story. Just pure fun, a romp through the twenties and vaudeville. We even get to meet a young Jack Benny, and a few others who at the time had top acts on the circuit. Dressing rooms, theaters, the life of those in the business, and one has to admire their grit because there were so many acts it was hard to stay on top. Good story, fast moving, some wonderful characters, this one is a delight.
    • 5/5
      THE IMPERSONATOR was an excellent historical mystery filled with details about Vaudeville, bootlegging, and life in the Pacific Northwest in the 1920s. Leah has been in Vaudeville since she was an infant and has survived alone since her mother's death when Leah was twelve. She has gone from act to act and changed her name to fit ever since. But one night, Oliver Beckett comes to her with a proposition that will change her life. She is a dead ringer for his niece Jessie who disappeared at age fourteen. Jessie was the sole heir to the Carr fortune. Now the time of her twenty-first birthday and the seventh anniversary of her disappearance are approaching. Oliver wants Leah to impersonate Jessie, inherit the money, and share it with him. Leah turns him down at first but when she loses her job with her current act and can't find another, desperation forces her to take Oliver's offer. She is in training to become Jessamyn Beckett Carr.After some quick tutoring, Leah first tries out her act on Oliver's mother who was Jessie's grandmother. Acceptance by her Grandmother and her Uncle Oliver and a story that will be hard for the trustees of "Jessie's" estate to disprove helps pave the way to meeting her aunt and cousins at Cliff House in Oregon. Jessie disappeared while in the care of this family. Her Aunt Veronica was consumed by her husband's last illness and Jessie was left at the mercy of her older cousins Henry and Ross and the teasing of her younger twin cousins Valerie and Caroline.While learning about Jessie, Leah becomes determined to find out what happened to her. She quickly learns that other young women from the area had been murdered. Because they were poor and Chinese or Native their deaths weren't being investigated very thoroughly. Leah quickly begins to suspect that one of her cousins - either Henry or Ross - was involved. Leah also has to deal with a number of attempts on her life when she assumes the role of Jessie.This was an excellent mystery. I enjoyed getting to know Leah and could easily empathize with her decision to try for a better life. I liked the period details and the mentions of Vaudeville stars that had later careers in radio and television. Jack Benny plays a key role as Leah's friend. I highly recommend this engaging and well-written novel.