Where social climbing is a home industry and membership in exclusive clubs often unobtainable, "Murder in the Hamptons" offers a unique motive for homicide: exclusion from a coveted world of social position in the exclusive Hamptons of Long Island, New York. Though fictional, the familiar scenes and characters in this novella bring to life a portrait of a beloved seashore town where in the words of bishop Reginal Herber, "every prospect pleases, and only man is vile." * * * * Jeanne Toomey takes credit for not being the best journalist in America, but almost surely the one who has worked for...

Working for as many as 30 newspapers, as well as the Associated Press and King Features Syndicate in her career, Toomey has been a veteran wanderer and itinerant. Here the only living founder of the New York Press Club shares the story behind the stories.