TY  - BOOK
AU  - Allen,Ida Reade
TI  - Heart to heart
T2  - New eagle series no. 989
AV  - PS 
PY  - 2025///
CY  - Salt Lake City, UT
PB  - Project Gutenberg
KW  - Detective and mystery stories
KW  - Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
KW  - Dime novels
KW  - Romance fiction
N1  - Release date is 2025-12-23; Demian Katz and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Images courtesy of the Digital Library@Villanova University.); Originally published; New York: Street & Smith, 1896
N2  - "Heart to heart" by Ida Reade Allen is a mystery-romance novel written in the late 19th century. Set in the lakeside town of Lakeview, it pivots on a sensational wedding-day death that exposes hidden motives, tangled affections, and social pressures. Central figures include Colonel Willowby and his daughter Maud, the conflicted Henry Cross, the keen-eyed detective Jack Hull, and the enigmatic Violet Harding.

The opening of the novel stages a radiant spring wedding that collapses into shock when bridegroom Allen Chesterbrook is discovered stabbed in his rooms, the scene suggestive of robbery yet missing nothing of value. Coroner Granby and Detective Hull take charge; Hull notes a dagger marked “V. H.” and golden hairs with a crinkled hairpin, soon focusing on Violet Harding after hearing town gossip and later intervening when a rough acquaintance confronts her by the lake. Meanwhile, Henry Cross finds and briefly conceals a torn letter implying Allen intended to break his engagement, and he privately tells Colonel Willowby—who is also reeling from a looming financial ruin Allen had promised to avert. Cross steps in to shore up the colonel’s debts and urges silence to spare Maud, while the funeral passes without her appearance and suspicion quietly gathers around Violet. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
UR  - https://digital.library.villanova.edu/Item/vudl:1200736
UR  - https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77537
ER  -