This mystery is fresh and original and invokes the era of victory gardens, rationing, scrap metal drives and the music, fashion, movies and values of WWII 1940’s America. Set in Progress, a prosperous town with its own local newspaper the story is told from the perspective of Irene, acting editor-in-chief replacing her dad who is serving on the Pacific front. Irene was formerly limited to the women’s page but is running the paper following local stories and war news while managing staff and editing the paper. A series of anti-Semitic attacks and vandalism against shop owner and neighbors, is big local news which exposes the divisions between supporters of the war and those sympathetic to the Third Reich. That story overlaps another when her best investigative reporter takes off to follow up on a secret lead and is found dead, days later at the bottom of his cellar stairs. Meanwhile her mother rents a room to a young mysterious NYC singer Katherine who moves to town to work in the local Ironworks factory just re-tooled to produce massive quantities of parts for tanks, airplanes etc.
Continue reading “Front Page Murder by Joyce St. Anthony – A Homefront News Mystery”
This mystery is a World War 2 expose of the risks, perils and bravery of the SOE agents who were made prisoners by their own organization because they were considered to be security risks and compromised and couldn’t be allowed back into the field or released from duty. Though it’s fiction the rules and premises are real and it could have happened – perhaps not as dramatically – but very plausible.