Death in a Time of Spanish Flu

In October 1918, the Allies are winning the war in Europe, but the Spanish flu is rampant at home. In Chicago, Emily’s husband is fighting the virus at Cook County Hospital. Their daughter has dropped her social ambitions to study sculpture while their doctor son has returned from France injured in body and spirit. Emily is shocked to learn her children were friends of the victim in a scandalous murder. The wife of a notorious gambling king shot her young lover. When Emily follows them to the Dil Pickle club she enters an avant-garde world of artists and writers biding their time for their lives to return to normal. When a man is found shot there, Emily works with Detective Whitbread prove her children are not involved in the death.

Starred review in Publishers Weekly
Set in 1918 Chicago, McNamara’s excellent ninth Emily Cabot mystery (after 2020’s Death on the Home Front) finds Emily’s physician husband, Stephen, serving on the front lines of the Spanish Influenza epidemic. Meanwhile, Emily gets drawn into a murder investigation involving Flora Murphy, a notorious gambling king’s second wife, who’s accused of shooting her younger lover. When Emily discovers that two of her children—Jack, a physician who served in France, and Lizzie, an aspiring sculptor—were friends of the victim, Emily must follow them into the notorious Bohemian circle of the Dil Pickle Club, where revolutionaries, mobsters, and intellectuals such as Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and Sherwood Anderson once congregated to read poetry and discuss politics. The shooting death of a man at the club raises the stakes. The real-life characters mingle seamlessly with the fictional ones to capture the myriad contradictions of Chicago, from the dirty politicians and gangsters who run the city to the idealists, intellectuals, and revolutionaries who are committed to social change. This timely novel informs as much as it entertains. (Oct.)
 

Praise for Frances McNamara’s previous novels

“McNamara packs in fascinating and edifying period details while never losing sight of the riveting mystery plot. Historical fiction fans won’t want to miss this one.” PW starred review for book 8 of series

“McNamara’s suspenseful third Emily Cabot mystery…convincingly recreates a pivotal moment in American labor history…Laurie King and Rhys Bowen fans will be delighted.” Publishers Weekly

“McNamara…proves, if anyone was asking, that librarians make great historical mystery writers…

I’d follow Emily to any location.” Historical Novels Review

“The eighth volume in novelist Frances McNamara’s simply outstanding Emily Cabot Mysteries series, Death on the Homefront, is an inherently compelling read and one that will be especially appreciated by mystery buffs partial to women sleuth ‘whodunnit’ stories. Deftly crafted with many an unexpected plot twist and turn, [it] is unreservedly recommended.” — Midwest Book Review

Trade Paperback • ISBN: 978-1-956978-18-6 • $14.99 Ebook • ISBN: 978-1-956978-19-3• $4.99

FICTION / Mystery & Detective /Historical • 5.5″ x 8.5″ • 263 pages

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