Four Lost Ladies

Book excerpt: A librarian who just came into money dies in a New York hotel room, and justice is overdue: “Full of fun and delightful people. A really terrific plot” (Chicago Daily News). With a seven-hundred-dollar inheritance in her pocket, small town librarian Harriet Bascom went to the track. By the time she left she had thousands—enough to live life the way she had always wanted: with champagne, music, and love. The champagne and music flow freely once she arrives in New York City, but it’s love that brings trouble. When she discovers her beloved has a terrible secret, she makes the mistake of being alone when she confronts him about it—and doesn’t even scream when she dies. Harriet is one of the three thousand women who disappear in New York each year—the women Hildegarde Withers wants to know more about. Unhappily retired, this former elementary school teacher is hungry for action. Investigating Harriet’s case—and the three other ladies who follow her into death—will provide all the action Miss Withers could ever want. Four Lost Ladies is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.