Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Lisa Ks Book Reviews blog is proud to bring to you

THE COZY TIMES

This is a weekly online publication focused on connecting cozy mystery readers to favorite cozy characters by way of their town's newspapers.

Today The Cozy Times has reached deep into the archives and is featuring the

Amesbury Daily News

from 1888!

As you I'm sure you know,

the Amesbury Daily is a very old paper.

The header and photos below are photocopied, but the text has been retyped to save the integrity of the original paper.

I just know you're going to enjoy this look into the past with the Daily.

Check it out!

Local Quaker Nabs Arsonist

Edith Maxwell, Amesbury Daily News Correspondent

April 11, 1888, Amesbury, MA

Area midwife Rose Carroll apprehended a local man attempting to set the Friends Meetinghouse aflame Sunday morning.

The Chronicle has learned that Carroll, twenty four, ran from the worship service after she deduced the identity of the man, Stephen Hamilton, whom she thought was the Carriage Fire culprit. She’d planned to go directly to the police station to inform them. Instead, she caught Hamilton red-handed starting a fire at the back of the thirty-year-old wooden structure on Friend Street.

She raised the alarm within, and members of the church joined her in putting out the fire and restraining Hamilton, son of mill owner Cyrus Hamilton. Famed poet John Greenleaf Whittier assisted in the effort.

Will young Hamilton also be charged with setting the Carriage Fire? Detective Kevin Donovan was close-mouthed about the investigation. “Miss Carroll is to be commended for her insight and bravery,” he offered instead.

Daily News correspondent Edith Maxwell also writes mystery fiction when she’s not reporting.

*****

Miss Tunstall’s Tidbits

Midwife Rose Carroll has been spotted about town courting with handsome Newburyport doctor David Dodge. One's a Quaker, one a Unitarian. Is that combination going to mix like whiskey and water... or like oil and water?

Amesbury postmistress Bertie Winslow continues to scandalize the town by riding astride rather than sidesaddle. The Tidbit’s sources hint at further misbehavior between Miss Winslow and the lady she shares her home with, the attorney Miss Sophie Colby. To top it off, Miss Winslow calls her steed Grover – the first name of our dear President! Can no one tame this woman?

The Tidbit applauds the rebuilding efforts of our local carriage factory owners after the Great Fire of 1888. But is something amiss with Mr. William Parry of Parry CarriageWorks? What young lady, who recently gave birth to a bastard son, has he been visiting of late – even as his own wife is with child?

*****

Wow!

It was all happening in 1888 wasn't it?

And what about postmistress Bernie Winslow?

She sure sounds like someone to be reckoned with.

~~~~~~~~

That's this week's edition of

The Cozy Times

I hope you enjoyed!

To learn more about the town of Amesbury

and it's residents, read

DELIVERING THE TRUTH

Book 1 in the Quaker Midwife Mysteries

by Edith Maxwell

Quaker midwife Rose Carroll discovers dark secrets in 1888 Massachusetts.

For Quaker midwife Rose Carroll, life in Amesbury, Massachusetts, provides equal measures of joy and tribulation. She delights in attending to the needs of mothers and newborns even as she mourns the recent death of her sister. Likewise, Rose enjoys the giddy feelings that come from being courted by a handsome doctor, but a suspicious fire and two murders leave her fearing for the well-being of her loved ones.

Driven by her desire for safety and justice, Rose Carroll begins asking questions related to the crimes. Consulting with her friends and neighbors―including the famous Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier―Rose draws on her strengths as a counselor and problem solver in trying to bring the perpetrators to light.

About the author

Agatha-nominated and Amazon best-selling author Edith Maxwell writes the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries, the Country Store Mysteries (as Maddie Day), and the Lauren Rousseau Mysteries (as Tace Baker), as well as award-winning short crime fiction. Her story, “A Questionable Death,” which features the same 1888 setting and characters as Delivering the Truth, is nominated for a 2016 Agatha Award for Best Short Story.

Edith is Vice-President of Sisters in Crime New England and Clerk of Amesbury Friends Meeting. She lives north of Boston with her beau and three cats – Christabel, Preston, and Birdy - and blogs with the other Wicked Cozy Authors. You can find her on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, and at her web site, edithmaxwell.com.

Also by Edith Maxwell

Local Foods Mysteries

Book Four

Coming May 31

Spring may be just around the corner, but a cold-blooded killer has put the big chill on the residents of Westbury, Massachusetts. It looks like organic farmer-turned-sleuth Cam Flaherty will have to set aside her seedlings for the time being as she tills the soil for clues in the mysterious death of a local poultry maven.

With the weather getting warmer, Cam should be spending her days pruning blueberry bushes and taking care of the new batch of chicks that just hatched. But murder knows no season. So when her fellow fowl-raiser Wayne Laitinen is found dead at his breakfast table one morning, Cam must put down her trimming shears and put on her crime-solving hat.

The kind-hearted chicken farmer didn't have any enemies--or did he? A wealthy financier has been working hard to convince him to sell her his land, while a group of animal rights activists recently vandalized his property. Money troubles were threatening to sink his marriage. And a thirty-year-old scandal was driving a wedge between him and one of his oldest friends.

Murder, blackmail, cover-ups. There's a fox in the hen house. But where? With some help from her off-again, on-again flame, police detective Pete Pappas, Cam will have to crack this case before Wayne's killer flies the coop forever.

Book One

Book Two

Book Three

Also by Edith Maxwell writing as Maddie Day

The Country Store Mysteries

Book Two

Coming May 31

Robbie Jordan may have had reservations about the murder victim, but she still needs to turn up the heat on a killer if she wants to keep her new restaurant open for business…

In the charming small town of South Lick, Indiana, Robbie has transformed a rundown country store into the runaway hit Pans 'N Pancakes. But the most popular destination for miles around can also invite trouble. Erica Shermer may be the widow of handsome local lawyer Jim Shermer's brother, but she doesn't appear to be in mourning. At a homecoming party held in Robbie's store, Erica is alternately obnoxious and flirtatious--even batting her eyelashes at Jim. When Erica turns up dead in the store the next morning, apparently clobbered with cookware, the police suspect Robbie's friend Phil, who closed up after the party. To clear Phil and calm her customers, Robbie needs to step out from behind the counter and find the real killer in short order…

Includes Recipes for You to Try!