Elizabeth Daly cattura la società con straordinaria chiarezza attraverso le interazioni dei personaggi, seguendo la tradizione di Jane Austen. Mentre i lettori moderni abituati alle esplorazioni di patologie oscure potrebbero trovare il suo focus su superfici levigate e non detti meno risonante, il suo lavoro offre un'alternativa convincente. Per coloro che apprezzano la possibilità di segreti nascosti sotto eleganti esterni e disdegnano gli stili confessionale espliciti, i misteri meticolosamente elaborati di Daly hanno un fascino significativo. I suoi romanzi, con protagonista il bibliofilo Henry Gamadge, sono particolarmente apprezzati dai fan dei bibliomisteri.
Es war nur ein alter Shakespeare-Band, in dem einige Stellen unterstrichen waren. Und Adele Fisher, die das Buch Henry Gamadge brachte, war nur ein einsames Mädchen, das durch ein seltsames Ereignis berunruhigt wurde. Der Mann, den sie suchte, lag im Sterben, aber er starb anscheinend eines natürlichen Todes. Buchexperte und Privatdetektiv Henry Gamadge will es aber genau wissen und ermittelt auf eigene Faust.
The discovery of young Amberly Cowden's body at the base of a cliff, as well as the strange events apparently related to the impoverished acting troupe at the Cove, disrupt Gamage's restful golf retreat.
Take one grand house, stuff it with staff, and make it home to several generations. If they send their sons to Oxford and occasionally knock each other off, you've got a country-house murder mystery, the delight of classic English crime fiction. But if the boys are instead at Yale, odds are that you're reading its American counterpart, the New York mansion mystery; a genre largely invented and perfected by Elizabeth Daly. Daly does take Henry Gamadge, her gentleman-sleuth, on the occasional jaunt to the country, but in Arrow Pointing Nowhere they're both back on the Upper East Side, where Gamadge has been receiving missives suggesting that all is not right at the elegant Fenway mansion. He will ultimately, of course, unravel the mystery, but even more delightful than the solution is the peek at what the New York Times called New York at its most charming.