Smoke and Mirrors

By: Elizabeth Peters

Narrated by: Elisabeth Ashby

An idealistic young woman finds working a political campaign can be murder in this romantic suspense novel by "a master storyteller" (Mary Higgins Clark).

Young Erin Hartsock arrives in Washington DC with ambition—and little interest in politics. However, when she's offered a position on a congresswoman's campaign for the Senate, she's more than happy to flee her dead-end job to take on what she expects will be boring administrative work . . .

But as the campaign heats up, disturbing events follow. There's a string of dangerous fires, a violent attack, and a seemingly accidental death. Erin begins to wonder about her colleagues all while they grow suspicious of her. Someone's got a secret—and with the election looming, Erin must quickly uncover who's behind the chaos before she becomes a prime candidate for murder.

©1989 Barbara Michaels (P)2024 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Smoke and Mirrors - a great adventure!

Barbara Michaels (her real name is Barbara Mertz) is such a great storyteller! I enjoyed this one so much, the characters were well developed and I was definitely still trying to guess the ending to the very end. I loved it - it wasn’t one of the scarier Barbara Michaels books. It still had a pretty light and funny tone at times. I love when she describes places, especially her stories in Virginia. Here, she took us to Washington D.C. in the late 1980s. It reminded me of “Be Buried in the Rain” by Barbara Michaels, which is definitely more intense than this one. That is also a great suspense mystery for sure! Check out Elizabeth Peters and Barbara Michaels books - the Vicky Bliss series, the Amelia Peabody series and her standalone mystery books are really enjoyable. Barbara Mertz is a terrific storyteller in all her different writing styles and pen names.

Classic Barbara Michaels

This is another one of Barbara Michaels solidly enjoyable books. Her gift at character creation and development is a joy, and her writing is as solid as ever. I was hesitant about a narrator other than Barbara Rosenblat, but Elisabeth Ashby does a good job.

Please give us more recoding of Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters’s books!

Some things never change

Its nice to listen to a light story about how the political sausage is made from the point of view of the good guys. This is at least 30 years old, so it's a bit old fashioned. I think this author really enjoyed learning about different facets of life via the medium of novels for young women.

what's to like?

I found the tropes too obvious and the voice too sophmoric. Athough I quit before finishing it when I realized it wasn't going to get better.

Very Disappointing

Normally I love the novels written by Elizabeth Peters, aka Barbara Michaels. This one was a big exception. I prefer Barbara Rosenblat (sp?) as the narrator as well.