Sue McGinty

"I shoved the clothes aside and my heart skipped another beat. A staircase. I knew without looking-those narrow stairs led to the attic..." It's 1943, and young Sara Grace LeBeau is sent across town to live with a great-aunt she's never met, while her father, a former Detroit Free Press reporter, covers World War II in Europe. Her mother has died, and Great-Aunt Blanche makes it clear that Sara Grace is an intolerable burden. The young girl soon discovers the woman's creepy old house-with its mysterious attic footsteps, puttied over keyholes and a secret staircase-harbors a secret buried deep in her great-aunt's southern roots.

It's 2016 and ex-nun Bella Kowalski has a new job as an Uber driver and a new dog, a Great Dane named Romeo. When Romeo unearths the remains of a Tolosa Tech student on land between the Los Lobos Cemetery and the wastewater plant, Bella and Mrs. Willibanks, her partner in crime, become entangled in a caper involving the old murder." Ms. McGinty's series is charming, fun, and as entertaining as anything Agatha Christie has published. Her puzzles are challenging too." -Tony Piazza, author of Tom Logan Vintage Mysteries "Wit and intrigue are hallmarks of both Bella Kowalski and Sue McGinty." -Victoria Heckman, author of K. O.'d in Hawaii & Elizabeth Murphy Mystery Series