A Lack of Temperance

Set in 1892, Loan-Wilsey’s delightful debut introduces Hattie Davish, who has left Kansas City, Mo., for the Ozark town of Eureka Springs, Ark., to take a temporary secretarial position with Edwina Trevelyan, a woman she’s never met and knows little about. Typewriter in hand, Hattie arrives to find a riot in progress, courtesy of the local American Women’s Temperance Coalition, and the rioters’ leader, who happens to be her new employer, being carted off to jail. Further belying the surrounding hot springs’ much touted healthiness, Edwina later turns up dead and stuffed into her steamer trunk. Offended to be called “only a typewriter,” Hattie decides to track down the killer herself. Suspects include Edwina’s bad-tempered AWTC rival, Cordelia Anglewood; friendly Josephine Piers, who claims she’s Edwina’s new secretary; and any number of disgruntled imbibers. Cozy fans will eagerly await Hattie’s next adventure. Agent: John Talbot, the John Talbot Agency. (Oct.)