Miss Maitland Private Secretary
by Geraldine Bonner  -  1919
370 pages
genre  -  Mystery, Adventure
my rating  -  4 out of 5 stars


A list of the major characters:
Chapman Price - no good, an idler
Suzanne Price - selfish, spoiled
Bebita Price - their young daughter
Mrs. Janney - Suzanne's proud, wealthy mother
Mr. Janney - loves his new wife
Esther Maitland - Mrs. Janney's secretary
Dick Ferguson - a single gentleman, lives next door

At the beginning of the book, Chapman Price is being told to leave. His mother-in-law tells him his marriage to her daughter is over. Vacate the estate. Immediately. Chapman does leave, but with shouts and threats.  (See the above illustration from the printed book.)

Chapter one is devoted to introducing the cast, but it doesn't take long for events to slowly start to build; mysterious and threatening letters, meetings at night in the woods, a robbery, two sets of detectives, listening in on phone calls, and an abduction. And all this takes place on Long Island, New York.

With plenty of twist and turns, it takes everyone to figure out the mysteries and catch the bad guys. And all the loose ends do get tied up in the end. There was just enough detail to make the story believable, but not get bogged down. I never lost interest in the story.  The text of the story is centered on the screen of my Kindle. In other words, not left aligned like we're used to.

About the author  -

Geraldine Bonner was born in 1870 on Staten Island, New York.  As a young child, she moved to Colorado where the family lived in mining camps.  After moving to San Francisco, California, she worked for the Argonaut Newspaper.  Ms. Bonner wrote 8 books, 2 plays, and numerous short stories that were published in Collier's Weekly, Harper's Weekly, Harper's Monthly and Lippincott's.