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Coign of Vantage: The Boston Athenæum Murders

When, in a period of six weeks, three members of the venerable literary society, the Cart-Tail Club, die horribly, Boston's codfish aristocracy enlists the services of probabilities expert Austin Layman to provide an explanation. Layman's inquiries lead him to that august institution The Boston Athenæum, the world's foremost gentleman's library, where some scandal-laden manuscripts, missing for forty years, have just turned up.

Aided and abetted by an assertive matron, a governor's aide cast in the Kennedy image, a librarian who is fully capable of instructing royalty in poise, and an assortment of Proper Bostonians that includes a retired mystery writer and an Episcopal bishop, Layman probes the dark corners of the past and flushes out demons of a kind the town has not beheld since cries of witchcraft echoed through its twisting seventeenth-century thoroughfares.

A witty, satiric escapade, Coign of Vantage will leave readers limp with surprise, laughter and astonishment.


	"Humorous, erudite, a good puzzle and a good read. When you turn the last page, you’ll feel as though your ancestors were born in Boston."
	-Mary Higgins Clark


	"With silken gloves, John McAleer’s Coign of Vantage first pinches then pummels the names and institutions of Olde Boston. A marvelous cultural romp."
	-Jeremiah Healy


	"As thick with atmosphere as a proper Bostonian’s head, John McAleer’s Coign of Vantage is a witty, most literate, most proper Boston mystery novel which penetrates some of the doors behind which proper Bostonians revel in their eccentricities while not revealing their family skeletons. Rattling good fun."
	-Gregory McDonald


	"I challenge anyone not to consume Coign of Vantage in one sitting. A delicious mystery that combines the best of The Proper Bostonians with the best of Parker’s Spenser stories. John McAleer gives the reader a delightful glimpse of his region - Beantown"
	-Robin Moore


	"John McAleer is right on target – Coign of Vantage is a pleasure."
	-Robert B. Parker