Murder at the Menger

The Mrs. Maisel of the mystery world, Sydney Lockhart, takes you on a thrill-ride around San Antonio as she searches for the next killer. 

She’s at it again, Sydney Lockhart is trying to solve a murder in another famous hotel while avoiding being locked up for the very crime she’s investigating. Bribes, fixed races, dirty money and unkempt places. A string of illicit deeds that trails from San Antonio to New Orleans and back again. Be it plane, train or automobile, Sydney will get to the bottom of this case in her own determined style.

It’s 1953, and detective Sydney Lockhart finds herself solving another murder. The victim is a slick bookie named Johnny Pine who had his dirty fingers in pies from Texas to Florida. Sydney tracks Pine to the Menger Hotel in San Antonio where she discovers he’s been murdered in the room next to hers. And as usual, Sydney is a suspect. With her partner, Ralph Dixon, handling the case from Austin, or so she believes, Sydney is working alone in unfamiliar territory.

To make matters worse her car is stolen, and she elicits the help of an Irish cab driver named Taco and a bouncer named Rip. Soon she’s on the trail of Nora Jasper, a harlot jazz singer and Pine’s girlfriend. Corpses start to pile up, a string of illicit deeds surface and Sydney’s home life goes south. But the investigation takes a bizarre turn when Sydney is whacked over the head and thrown into the river. She surfaces with a faulty memory, uncertain of whom she can trust. Her only choice is to find the killer before the killer finds her, or before she gets arrested.

A cozy mystery with lots of humor and a few creepy creatures that crawl, you will find yourself on an entertaining goose chase until the very end.

Kathleen Kaska is the author of the awarding-winning mystery series: the Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series set in the 1950s and the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series. Her first two Lockhart mysteries, Murder at the Arlington and Murder at the Luther, were selected as bonus books for the Pulpwood Queen Book Group, the country’s largest book group. She also writes mystery trivia. The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book was published by Rowman & Littlefield. Her Holmes short story, “The Adventure at Old Basingstoke,” appears in Sherlock Holmes of Baking Street, a Belanger Books anthology. She is the founder of The Dogs in the Nighttime, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Anacortes, Washington, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars.