THE KILLER WHISKEY
Susan Calder
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GENRE: Mystery
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BLURB:
The 1918 influenza pandemic strikes Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Great War rages overseas. While her husband fights in Europe, Katharine works in a doctor’s office to support her children and her brother, a wounded veteran. One night their neighbour suddenly takes sick and dies. The attending doctor concludes the man died from influenza, but Katharine suspects someone laced his whisky with a drug that mimics the deadly flu’s symptoms.
Katharine convinces the police to investigate. Worried about her brother’s involvement with a suspect, she delves into his secrets and comes to fear he’s connected to the murder. She grows disturbingly attracted to the investigating detective who returns her affections. He’s convinced her brother or someone else close to her is a killer and risks his career to pursue the crime. Katharine must discover the truth so she can move forward in a world that has changed forever.
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Excerpt:
Detective Bertram Tanner strode into Calgary Police Headquarters, his steps lighter than they’d been this morning.
“How was your walk?” Julia, the receptionist, asked.
“Reflective.”
“I often think while walking too.”
It was too soon to tell his colleagues he might be leaving the police force. “How was your lunch hour?”
“Busy,” she said. “I tracked down balloons for my son’s birthday celebration tonight.”
“Which son?”
“The oldest. He’s ten years old. We decided to limit the party to family due to the flu. He’s disappointed his friends can’t come, but it will be lively with all of us there.”
Julia, a war widow with three children, lived with her parents—the police chief and his wife.
“I phoned my mother after lunch,” Julia said. “She went to every confectionary in town and managed to find all the children’s favourite sweets despite the sugar shortage.”
The chief’s wife was a ball of energy. A leader in the local suffragette and Prohibition movements, she claimed personal credit for Alberta women gaining the vote and the province going dry in 1916.
Bertram went into his office, closed the door, and draped his coat and hat on the coat tree. What work could he do this afternoon? Reports of the Spanish flu’s arrival on a train from Eastern Canada were keeping people away from the pool rooms and dance halls. Calgary hadn’t had a brawl or knifing in a week. Even the criminals seemed to be staying home.
He took out an old file, a robbery scheduled for trial next week. A man broke into a house in the Sunalta neighbourhood and stole $2.75. Disturbed by a noise, he fled through a window but foolishly returned an hour later. Caught red-handed by three residents, the robber could be sentenced to up to a year of hard labour. Bertram tried to organize his trial notes, but his thoughts kept shifting to his plan to leave the police force when the war ended and soldiers came home to replace him on the job. After fifteen minutes, he set the robbery file aside and decided to take a methodical approach to his lunch hour reflections about leaving.
He took out a clean sheet of paper, drew a vertical line down the middle, and titled each side “pro” and “con.”
Susan Calder lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She is the author of five novels published by BWL Publishing Inc. A Deadly Fall, Ten Days in Summer, Winter's Rage and Spring Into Danger are part of her Paula Savard Mystery Series. The books follow the adventures of Paula, a Calgary insurance adjuster who works with the police to solve insurance-related crimes. Susan’s standalone suspense novel, To Catch a Fox takes a troubled Calgary woman to Southern California on a quest to find her missing mother. In December 2024, BWL will release Susan’s first historical novel, A Killer Whisky. The story is set in 1918 Calgary and will be the 12th and final book of the BWL Canadian Historical Mystery Series. Susan has also published non-fiction articles. Her short stories and poems have won contests and appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines. She is a member of Crime Writers of Canada, Sisters in Crime, and the Writers’ Guild of Alberta.
Website: https://susancalder.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Susan-Calder-Author/100063848538688/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Killer-Whisky-Canadian-Historical-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B0DN416CJQ/ref=sr_1_1
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