Annalee Spain Mystery

From award-winning author, Patricia Raybon, comes a compelling new historical mystery series, a riveting puzzle confronting the hidden secrets of class, race, family, and love. In the winter of 1923, Professor Annalee Spain, a daring but overworked theologian at a small Chicago Bible college, receives a cryptic telegram calling her home to Denver to solve the mystery of the murder of her beloved but estranged father. For a young Black woman, searching for answers in a city ruled by the KKK could mean real danger. Still, with her literary hero Sherlock Holmes as inspiration, Annalee launches her hunt for clues, attracting two surprising allies: Eddie, a relentless young white boy searching for his missing father, and Jack, a handsome Black pastor who loves nightclub dancing and rides in his sporty car, awakening Annalee's heart to the surprising highs and lows of romantic love. With their help, Annalee follows clues that land her among Denver's powerful elite. But, when their sleuthing unravels sinister motives and deep secrets, Annalee confronts the dangerous truths and beliefs that could make her a victim too.

In the cold and dangerous spring of 1924, amateur detective Annalee Spain races the clock to solve the murder of a white barnstorming pilot before the clever Black theologian-a target of the ruthless Colorado Klan-is framed for the crime, and before she is lured by the risky flirtations of the victim's dashing twin brother. As this second installment of Patricia Raybon's critically acclaimed mystery series opens, Annalee Spain offers her fancy lace handkerchief-a gift from her complicated pastor boyfriend, Jack Blake-to a young woman crying in a Denver public library. But later that night, when police find the handkerchief next to the body of the young woman's murdered husband, Annalee becomes the number one suspect, and her panic doubles when she learns that Jack has gone missing. With just days to solve the murder before the city's Klan-run police frame her for the crime, Annalee finds herself hunting for clues in the Colorado mountain town of Estes Park. She questions the victim's wife and her uncle, a wealthy Denver banker, at their mountain lodge, desperate for leads. Instead, she finds a household full of suspects and even more burning questions. Who keeps threatening her, why can't she find Jack, and will a dangerous flirtation be her undoing? Her answers plumb the depths of the human heart, including her own, exploring long-buried secrets, family lies, even city politics-all of which could cost the young detective her fledgling love . . . and perhaps even her life.

Denver's newest detective. A garden's deadly secrets. On a lovely June night in 1924, amateur detective Annalee Spain is mingling bravely at a high-class political fundraiser in the lush backyard garden of famed political fixer Cooper Coates, one of the wealthiest men in Denver's Black neighborhood of Five Points. When Coates's young daughter discovers a pretty stranger dead in her father's garden shed, Annalee is thrust onto the baffling new case just as she's reeling from another recent discovery, a handwritten letter, found buried in her own garden, that reveals the identity of her mother. Not ready to face the truth about her hidden past, Annalee throws herself into solving the mystery of the young woman's demise. With the help of her pastor boyfriend Jack Blake, her orphaned buddy Eddie, and her trustworthy church friends, Annalee follows the clues to three seemingly disconnected settings, a traveling carnival set up downtown, a Black civic club, and a prestigious white seminary on the outskirts of Denver. Intriguing advice also comes from a famous, real-life Denver visitor. But is Annalee on the right track or just running in circles, fleeing from conflicts racing in her heart? In a taut, heart-gripping narrative driven by secrets, romance, and lies, Annalee must unravel a case with higher stakes than she imagined, one where answers about a lovely woman's death point to truths and tensions still throbbing today.