M. Ruth Myers

At the end of Dayton’s first WWII blackout drill, a murder victim is found with private investigator Maggie Sullivan’s name and address in his pocket. Hours earlier he sat in her office asking for help – and using a different identity.

With the war draining men from all walks of life, a homicide detective long dismissive of Maggie’s skills reaches out to form an eggshell-fragile alliance. Warily they work together to find the person behind two vastly different deaths: An ex-con killed neatly outside a factory and a young woman left in a blood-soaked apartment.

Suspects abound. Maggie’s client may have links to the killer. A bitter ex-con had plenty of reason to want the man who betrayed him dead. And a sleazy pulp crime writer may be after more than a story.

Maggie works frantically to unmask the murderer before he kills again. But she must also bury an old friend and watch the man who once swore to love her forever turn elsewhere. Alone, she pushes doggedly on through a landscape darkened by homefront precautions and human evil.

Emily’s family thinks she just imagined a prowler snooping around the old house they’re moving into in Salem, Mass. That leaves it up to Emily and her new friend Russell to prove there really is someone sneaking around – and figure out what he’s hunting.

Could it have something to do with the old trunk they find in the attic? The trunk belonged to a famous magician who traveled all over the world. On one of his trips he saved a boy from bandits and received something very valuable as a reward. But what was it?

Can Emily and Russell solve the mystery and find the treasure before the prowler causes more problems for Emily’s family? It might show her neat new stepdad she's not as ordinary as he thinks. She didn't want to move to Salem, but now that she has she's kind-of-sort-of having fun.

(For ages 9-12)

As WWII rages in the Pacific, relatives of a Japanese-American suspected of starting a fatal fire hire Ohio private investigator Maggie Sullivan to uncover the truth. Did he do it? Is he alive or dead? The police claim not to know what became of him, and there are hints of War Department involvement.

Tosh Hashimoto and his family are among some 150 Japanese-Americans brought to Dayton by a church coalition that found jobs and housing for them throughout the community. The more Maggie learns about the night of the fire, the more she believes Tosh is being framed.

Grieving the recent loss of a close childhood friend killed in battle, Maggie wrestles inner conflict over taking the case. A harrowing attack in an alley, the murder of a witness, and a racist warning gouged into her office filing cabinet fuel her resolve to push ahead.

Amid rationing, shortages, extra beds for noisy newcomers wedged into corners of her once-quiet rooming house, and an unexpected change in her personal life, Maggie scrambles to determine the identity of a killer who is more than willing to kill again.