The Darkness Over Elmwood, 1903

Walking Tour with Robert Brighton, Author- Friday, June 16th at 7pm & Saturday, June 17th at 5pm 

No Illusions Tours welcomes Buffalo-born author Robert Brighton as your special guest guide for a fascinating walk back in time to the unsolved 1903 murder of prosperous businessman Edwin L. Burdick.

Burdick, murdered by persons unknown in the private den of his luxurious home in Elmwood, was a prominent member of the fast living ‘Elmwood Set’, the up-and-coming young professionals of Buffalo’s Gilded Age.

Brighton’s award-winning novel, The Unsealing, was inspired by the case.  And after four years of research (including locating images and documents never before revealed) – Brighton offers a solution … not only the ‘whodunit’, but the ‘whydunit’ … the motive behind the murder.

You’ll find Robert Brighton to be a knowledgeable, witty, and engaging guide to the darkness that fell over Elmwood in February 1903.  And you’ll be among the first to retrace the very footsteps of the victim and the murderer, hear the entire story of the murder, the inquest, and hone your own detective skills to analyze inconvenient facts that were carefully silenced, until now.

The tour will also include details of the time period to help contextualize the crime and those who played a part, including the story of Buffalo’s World’s Fair, the Pan American Exposition and some of the stars of No Illusions’ Buffalo’s Favorite Daughters tours, with connections to the turn of the last century: Louise Blanchard Bethune, Mary Burnett Talbert, Marian de Forest, Alice Russel Gelnny and Evelyn Rumsey Cary.

Also for fans of Brighton, this tour offers a unique personal opportunity to meet the author and ask him anything about the Burdick case, the real people and places that inspired his fictional world of Ashwood, or about his new novel,  A Murder in Ashwood.

For those who have not yet read The Unsealing, Robert Brighton is making available to No Illusions Tours a limited number of books at a VIP discounted price not found anywhere else!