Cold Morning: An Edna Ferber Mystery    by Ed Ifkovic Order:  USA  Can Poisoned Pen, 2016 (2016) Hardcover, Softcover, e-Book      Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth What a delight Ed Ilfovic's Cold Morning is. The topic of this new novel is a sad one. But how it is handled is so enjoyable to read. The night of March 1, 1932 was windy and full of despair for Charles Augustus Lindbergh and his wife Anne Morrow. Their twenty-month old son, Little Lindy, was kidnapped. The child's lifeless body was found several weeks later, a blow to the head seemingly the cause of death. It took over two years to arrest a suspect, Bruno Richard Hauptman, when he was caught spending some of the marked ransom money. The subsequent trial is attended by all who can fit into the small town of Flemington, New Jersey. Enter prize-winning novelist Edna Ferber and Aleck Woollcott, hired by the New York Times to cover the trial. The two friends create the most wonderful bon mots to buffer their own emotions about the senseless death of a tiny babe. Cold Morning is the seventh novel in Ed Ifkovic's Edna Ferber series and it is another hit for the author. It seems that every member of the media who had even half a breath in their bodies attended this trial. The celebrities began showing up as if it was a new hit on Broadway and not a man on trial for his life. Hauptman declared his innocence throughout the exaggerated ordeal. His wife backed his alibi. But the general public wanted the man dead. He was German! That alone was enough in their eyes to justify screaming 'Kill him' whenever the opportunioty arose. (Remember the Great War! We fought the Germans.) He took and killed the American hero's child. The father was the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. However, Edna is convinced of Hauptman's innocence. When a young woman arrives in town and tells everyone she is going to come into a fortune but is killed instead, Edna is concerned for the life of the young man arrested for the crime. The girl's roommate is murdered. Edna does some sleuthing (she is known for this) and proclaims this young, backward boy could not have killed either girl. The celebrities who arrived in Flemington are many and varied. Whether they all were really there or not is immaterial. It was fun to place them there and imagine walking down a street in that small town and seeing so many people whose names were well-known at that time. The author has a wonderful skill in setting a scene and dropping his readers into it. Cold Morning is a must-read. Note: Opinions expressed in reviews and articles on this site are those of the author(s) and not necessarily those of BookLoons. Find more Mystery books on our Shelves or in our book Reviews