The Fate of a Flapper
A Mystery
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3.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Fate of a Flapper, the second mystery in this captivating new series, takes readers into the dark, dangerous, and glittering underworld of a 1920's Chicago speakeasy.
A 2019 Agatha Award Nominee for "Best Historical Mystery"!
After nine months as a cigarette girl at the Third Door, one of Chicago’s premier moonshine parlors, Gina Ricci feels like she's finally getting into the swing of things. The year is 1929, the Chicago Cubs are almost in the World Series, neighborhood gangs are all-powerful, and though Prohibition is the law of the land, the Third Door can't serve the cocktails fast enough.
Two women in particular are throwing drinks back with abandon while chatting up a couple of bankers, and Gina can't help but notice the levels of inebriation and the tension at their table. When the group stumbles out in the early morning, she tries to put them out of her head. But once at home that night, Gina's sleep is interrupted when her cousin Nancy, a police officer, calls—she's found a body. Gina hurries over to photograph the crime scene, but stops short when she recognizes the body: it’s one of the women from the night before.
Could the Third Door have served the woman bad liquor? Or, Gina wonders, could this be murder? As the gangs and bombings draw ever closer, all of Chicago starts to feel like a warzone, and Gina is determined to find out if this death was an unlucky accident, or a casualty of combat.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Calkins's winning sequel to 2019's Murder Knocks Twice, likewise set in 1929 Chicago, finds cigarette girl Gina Ricci serving a rowdy crowd one night at the Third Door speakeasy. She takes particular notice of two young women, Fruma Landry and Adelaide, who receive the attentions of various men, not all of them welcome. The next morning, Gina gets a call from her police officer cousin, Nancy Doyle, who needs Gina, an amateur photographer, to take pictures of a dead body. The victim turns out to be Fruma, found by a neighbor in the apartment Fruma shared with Adelaide. Fruma's purple, distorted face points to poisoning. Did she die from drinking tainted hooch at the Third Door? Or is it a case of murder? Gina, who's suspicious of the stories Adelaide tells about the men in her late roommate's life, winds up investigating. Period slang lends authenticity. Calkins draws a memorable portrait of Prohibition-era Chicago.
