WITHOUT WARNING
By Eugenia West

Publishers Weekly:

This engaging start of a new series, West's first novel since 1979's The Ancestors Cry Out, introduces former opera star and blueblood Emma Streat. Emma's husband, Lewis, CEO of a defense company, has grown terse and paranoid of late, increasingly concerned with security and refusing to tell Emma what's bothering him. On a trip to London, Emma demands to know what's happening, but Lewis only tells her there's a problem with a new weapons project. Shortly after their return to Connecticut, Lewis dies in a suspicious accident. Emma heads back to London to investigate and soon learns of a second death, then a third. Though attempts are made on her own life, she remains determined to learn who murdered her husband and why. West spins a plausible tale, and flawed, grieving Emma makes an appealing heroine.

The Oklahoman:

When Emma Streat's successful executive husband was killed in a hit and run, she decides to find the killer. She was determined to discover who shattered their quiet life no matter the cost. The search plunges the former opera singer into the international high tech world where new inventions could become a global threat.

She becomes involved with a British peer who specializes in smoking out spies. Two physicists are murdered and a key notebook is stolen. Threats on her life increase and her search spirals into a terrifying and shocking end. This gripping story is outstanding in every aspect of an intriguing mystery - plot, suspense, characterization and thrilling finale - a very good one.

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Mysteries about strong women are nothing new, but Eugenia Lovett West provides a page turner of a twist in her first mystery, “Without Warning.”

Former opera star Emma Streat is living large in Connecticut: Her husband, Lewis, is a big success in the world of high tech, their two sons are in college and she’s a busy woman, not a sad empty-nester.

But then Lewis is killed by a hit-and-run driver near their home, and Emma sets out to find his killer. Convinced that the murder has something to do with her husband’s business, she travels from Connecticut to the United Kingdom and back several times, all the while rubbing elbows with the aristocrats of the U.S. tech world and those of England’s old nobility.

Despite threats to her life, Emma will not be dissuaded as she ferrets out not only Lewis’ killer but also a mega-threat to the world. West makes all this believable and tells her story with style, with wit (Emma’s godmother’s voice “sounded like a tuba filled with gravel”) and with panache worthy of Ian Fleming.

Kingston Observer:

This is a smashing, sophisticated, confident series debut featuring the elegant Emma Streat, former opera star, now a housewife living quite grandly in Connecticut. When Emma’s husband, Lewis, a powerful CEO, is run down by a car on their secluded road, Emma determines to learn who killed him and why. Across the pond lives a scientist who has the answers to Emma’s many questions, so Emma heads to Europe only to become involved with security types and multiple murders. Lewis had alluded to problems at the office shortly before he died. Lewis’s company dealt in high-tech weapons, and he knew that the latest instrument of destruction would be too much for a world at war already. Resourceful though she is, Emma becomes embroiled in an unfamiliar world of the highest stakes and duplicity. If you enjoy the work of Nancy Geary who writes mysteries about the troubled wealthy, you’ll certainly enjoy Eugenia West.

Lyme Times:

Simply engaging from start to finish. Clearly a series on its way.