An extended vacation to Florida turns onto a trip down memory lane when Charlotte visits a slew of old friends from her early years in Hollywood. The occasion: a glamorous charity ball inspired by the opulent french passenger ship, Normandie. The ship holds a special place in Charlotte's heart. Not long before it was destroyed by fire, she had enjoyed a tender shipboard romance on the famed luxury liner. At the party, Charlotte helps model a new line of high-priced art deco jewels inspired by the style of the Normandie's heyday. But the highlight of her evening is being reunited with famed bandleader and balladeer Eddie Norwood - the man she fell in love with during her 1939 voyage. Charlotte doesn't think anything can ruin the evening - until the world-renowned designer of the Normandiana jewelry collection is found stabbed to death at the party. Charlotte knows that almost any guest could be the murderer. And she is determined to navigate her way through the sea of potential suspects - before the killer claims another victim... Classy septuagenarian Charlotte Graham, famous both as an actress and a sleuth (Murder Among the Angels, LJ 1/96), here lends a hand to friends in Palm Beach, Florida. Invited to town for a charity gala combining a ship-theme dinner with the debut of a jewelry line designed by her goddaughter and a local jeweler, Charlotte nearly witnesses the jeweler's murder. Since she's acquainted with the main suspects, police ask her help. Delightful characters, opulent and picturesque surroundings, the revival of a long-ago shipboard romance, and ever-present wit make this prime reading and one of the best titles in the series. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. Matteson's sleuth Charlotte Graham is Miss Marple in furs and jewels. Graham is a legendary actress who lived well, loved better, but still has a keen eye for foul play. Here Graham is in Palm Beach visiting old friends when she attends an art-deco ball in which the decor re-creates the luxury liner Normandie . At the party, she meets an old love and, in the midst of dinner, learns that an acquaintance, a prominent jeweler, has been murdered on the beach. With her reputation as a sleuth preceding her, Graham is drawn into the case, which turns out to have fascinating and deadly ties to the sabotage of the real-life Normandie in 1942. The story, which sparkles with glamour, mixes romance and homicide effectively and thus is sure to satisfy those who like their mysteries soft-edged rather than hard-boiled. With Graham and her first love reunited as the story ends, can another murder be far behind? Ilene Cooper Everybody who's anybody is at the Palm Beach gala marking the 50th anniversary of the loss of the Normandie, sunk after a suspicious wartime fire in New York harbor. And when Charlotte Graham, the actress/sleuth who won an Oscar for the 1939 film The Normandie Affair, finds herself reunited with Eddie Norwood, the piano player she fell in love with during her starry-eyed crossing on the doomed ship, she doesn't want the evening to end. But it's society jeweler Paul Feder that time has stopped for: He's been stabbed to death on the beach outside. The local cops focus on fashion designer Marianne Montgomery, who'd set her cap for Feder and was jealous of his attentions to her daughter Dede, and on Lydia Collins, Dede's boss at the Historical Preservation Association, who had the second-oldest motive in the book. But when Eddie, now a big, big bandleader, confides in Charlotte his plan to ferret out the Fifth Columnists responsible for the Normandie's loss, new possibilities open up--along with vistas of delicious meals, cozy inns, and the couple's attempts to conceal their identities from the less renowned, efforts no more successful than Matteson's attempts to conceal the killer. Charlotte's eighth (Murder Among the Angels, 1995, etc.) supplies all the gilded memories and knickknacks you'd expect from a weekend at a good upscale shopping mall. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Stefanie Matteson was the editor of the Penobscot Times in Old Town, Maine, and the assistant lifestyle editor at the Bergen Record in Hackensack, New Jersey.