Showing results by author "Alice Duncan" in All Categories

Transplanted Boston Brahmin, Mercy Allcutt, has had some very exciting times as secretary to private investigator, Ernie Templeton. While it’s true she’s been in what she considers a wee bit of trouble (and Ernie considers out-and-out danger) a time or two, she’s determined to continue learning the ways of the “real” world. However, when she sets out to find her wandering boss, Ernie, one hot September afternoon, she not only discovers a corpse, but she also finds Ernie, bound and gagged. Worse, when the police arrive to investigate the crime, they peg Ernie as the killer.

Black hands in Fayette County, Tennessee, were free to pick cotton and corn but were barred from casting ballots. A whirlwind of change blew through the county when Black landowners like John McFerren and Harpman Jameson organized registration drives to help Black citizens vote—but not without violent attempts to stop it. White farmers evicted Black sharecroppers off their land, leaving families stranded and forced to live in tents. White shopkeepers also refused to sell to them. But the voiceless did finally speak. In 1965 the Voting Rights Act legally ended voter discrimination.

It's 1924 and spiritualist-medium Daisy Gumm and her fiancé, Detective Sam Rotondo, discover a dead body tucked away in the Pasadena Public Library's bibliography stacks.

Rescued from the doomed Titanic moments before its sinking, stewardess Marjorie McTavish is determined to find happiness at last. The dear friends who stood by her on that fateful night have vowed to help her now, and Marjorie, ever hopeful, accompanies them to the bustling port of San Francisco to begin all over again, far from the gloomy slums of Glasgow. Anything is possible in America, it seems - especially romance.

1920s, Pasadena, California: People are dropping dead after communion services at Daisy's church; Detective Sam Rotondo has finally professed his love for Daisy; and Daisy sees swaying trees in her crystal ball, a prop in which she doesn't place any faith. But when the crystal ball's image leads Daisy to her client's missing butler, and then a bunch of bootleggers, Daisy unknowingly bumps into the man responsible for the parishioners' deaths. She doesn't recognize him, but he recognizes her and that lands Daisy at the top of his to-be-murdered list.

It's 1924, and spiritualist-medium Daisy Gumm joins with friends Flossie and Harold to help Lily Bannister, whose abusive husband nearly killed her. Meanwhile, Mrs. Pinkerton - Daisy's best client - is in a tizzy, insisting Daisy use her (fake) spiritualist talent to end the engagement between her daughter and a most unsuitable man. To Daisy's surprise, the two cases collide, placing her in the middle. Now, Daisy must prove Lily's husband and Mrs. P's soon-to-be-son-in-law are in cahoots with nefarious human traffickers...before it's too late.

Black activist Opal Lee had a vision of Juneteenth as a holiday for everyone. This true story celebrates Black joy and inspires children to see their dreams blossom. Growing up in Texas, Opal knew the history of Juneteenth, but she soon discovered that many Americans had never heard of the holiday. Join Opal on her historic journey to recognize and celebrate "freedom for all."

Daisy Gumm Majesty, Pasadena's spiritualist-medium to folks with more money than sense, is talked into playing the role of mean Katisha in her church's production of Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta The Mikado. As rehearsals progress and Daisy falls into her role, the producer's wife experiences a mysterious decline in health, a cast member claims someone is trying to kill her, and the husband of another cast member is murdered.

The Ku Klux Klan has opened a chapter in Daisy Gumm Majesty's home town of Pasadena, California. Worse, Klan members are harassing Joseph Jackson, the gatekeeper for Daisy's best client, Mrs. Pinkerton. When Mrs. Pinkerton also becomes a target of vicious pranks, Daisy tries to get Detective Sam Rotondo, her new leading man, involved. Sam isn't thrilled. Worse, the bodies are piling up, and now he needs Daisy's help speaking to some of the Klan's victims. That makes Daisy a target, forcing Sam to redouble his efforts and keep Daisy from doing in the Klan with a bucket and baseball bat.

Daisy conducts a séance, and a real, live ghost appears. She has to figure out how he died and who dunnit, because the police have closed the case of his death, deeming it a suicide. According to the ghost, he was murdered.

By day she was Claire Montague, prim, demure housekeeper of Partington Place. By dark of night she wrote the wildly popular dime novels that had made frontiersman Tuscaloosa Tom Pardee a household name. Suddenly her new employer, the heir to Partington Place - and the real-life hero of her novels - stood before her in the flesh.

Daisy Gumm Majesty, spiritualist to folks with more money than sense, can scarcely believe that her best client wants her to get her spiritual control, Rolly, to appear at a séance in a speakeasy. Bad enough that Daisy made up Rolly when she was ten, but now Rolly has to perform at a séance for a bunch of murdering gangsters?

It's early October 1923, and three interesting things are going on in the generally dull town of Rosedale, New Mexico: the fall cattle drive, the fall rodeo, and a tent revival. Annabelle Blue is excited about the first two events. The last one might be okay if it weren't for the Reverend Milo Strickland's sister, Esther, whose ethereal loveliness has captivated all the men in town, including Annabelle's long-time beau, Phil Gunderson.

Rescued by a quirk of fate, Somerset FitzRoy remembers little about his ordeal in the icy water. But he cannot forget the frightened child who begged him for help that night - and her mother's beautiful face haunts his dreams. Days later, he is overjoyed to find Isabel and Eunice among the survivors in New York. Will she remember him? She must - because their love was meant to be.

In 1920s Pasadena, California, Daisy Gumm Majesty caters to the rich and famous as a medium who puts the "con" in conjurer. When she's blackmailed by Detective Sam Rotondo into spying on the wealthy Kincaid family, Daisy isn't quite sure what he's trying to sniff out. When Daisy gives Sam his own private reading, she tells him the spirits have a lot more in store for him. Original.

Young widow Maggie Bright had her hands full raising a baby daughter and running a farm with no one to help her except her lazy drunk of a hired hand. The last thing she needed was a bullet-riddled, half-dead stranger riding into her front yard. As she nursed Jubal Green back to life, Maggie found him by turns enchanting, stubborn, caring and handsome as sin - but most of all, dangerous.

Historical cozy mystery set in Los Angeles, CA, in 1926. Mercy Allcutt, Boston Brahmin, wants to experience life in all its grittiness. How better than by working for a down-on-his luck PI in Hollywood? Once she discovers what PI actually stands for, she knows Mr. Ernest Templeton is the boss for her. Together, they must cope with a stray child, kidnapping, blackmail, murder, a toy poodle, a vamp, a stalker, Mercy's overactive imagination and Ernie's strong protective streak.

Callida Prophet never would have suspected that her stubborn, sullen employer had such a tender way with words. He certainly doesn't show much affection toward beautiful six-year-old Becky, Callida's charge and his only child. But in the love letters he wrote years ago - which Becky finds and asks Callida to read to her - he is a completely different man. Poetic. Passionate. Utterly devoted. And suddenly, Callida sees this moody, mysterious widower with new, more loving eyes.

It's a warm August morning in 1926 Los Angeles, California. Mercedes Louise Allcutt (Mercy to her friends) is thrilled to be going to her job as secretary to private investigator Ernie Templeton - until she opens the door and discovers her mother on the doorstep. Known to her friends as Honoria and her daughters as The Wrath of God, Mrs. Allcutt is the very last person earth whom Mercy wants to see, barring a couple of coldblooded murderers she's met in the past few weeks.

It's the "Roaring '20s," but you wouldn't know the era was roaring if you lived in southeastern New Mexico. Except for the occasional "flicker" at the local motion-picture palace, it might as well be 1883 as 1923. When young Annabelle Blue's eccentric aunt Minnie begins complaining about ghosts in her home, poor Annabelle is sent out to Minnie's isolated ranch house to aunt-sit. She's not happy about it.