I'm a freelance writer with a day job. My work has appeared in Reader's Digest Books, City Search and others. Some time ago, while doing research for another writer, I came across a small article, describing the "handcuff strangler" in a 1910 Seattle Times Newspaper. I just couldn't let it go. This was the year that Washington State women won the right to vote (ten years before the U.S. passed the 19th amendment). Reformers were trying to shed Seattle's Wild West image and turn the town into a sophisticated modern city. This is my first novel.
It is 1910. Seattle's notorious red light district, often called the "Deadline," is doing a booming business in gambling, boozing and prostitution despite the efforts of reformers who are trying to shut it down. The police and the mayor are widely thought to be corrupt and guilty of graft.
Clara Johnson, a music hall singer and prostitute, is found murdered in a cheap hotel. She has been handcuffed and strangled. Little attention is given the incident in the press. The police make no progress in finding the murderer.
When Sophie Bramson, fleeing the music halls of Paris and an abusive husband, returns to her childhood home in Seattle, she manages to get a job with Dr. Lars Haglund, an elderly surgeon and pioneer forensic scientist. Sidney Raskin, a hard-edged police detective with a reputation for brute force justice, interrupts their interview. Another prostitute has been found handcuffed and strangled, and Raskin wishes Haglund's help on the case.
A wary courtship develops between Sophie and Raskin. Although she fears that he may be just another corrupt policeman, she is attracted to him. She thinks the police are not working hard enough to find the murderer of the two women because they were prostitutes and therefore not worthy of attention or sympathy. Over Raskin's protestations and with help from her suffragist friends, the astute Haglund and a few "ladies of the evening," Sophie takes on the dangerous task of investigating the deaths of the two women.
Título : South of the Deadline
EAN : 9781311616302
Editorial : Barbara Riegel
El libro electrónico South of the Deadline está en formato ePub
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