Price and Prejudice: A Judith Price Mystery in Two Acts: Price Mysteries Book 4

By Marcella Whitley

Price and Prejudice

A Mystery in Two Acts

Dan and Judith were off to a marvelous beginning of their life together. The work that she had done for the Liberty County Sheriff’s department aside, the puzzle business was humming along, Daniel’s paintings were on display in a gallery in the city, and the petunias were finally recovering from the August heat. Life was good. Things were going so well, in fact, there were no cases on the books that would fit into the focus of the Special Crimes Task Force. Judith was without a case. She wandered the station as a child, lost in thought, hoping something would break. But the Sheriff knew what Judith couldn’t resist – an unsolved case. But this case was not like any she had worked before because this was a case from years ago. Over a hundred years ago, in fact. Judith would be the case in record time, and she had all the time in the world to solve it. Or did she? Because someone alive today was willing to steal court documents to keep the secret of the Mason Jar Madonna, and the whereabouts of the missing millions, and how far would they are willing to go to stop the puzzle-meister from deducing the truth? She can’t waste another minute. And neither should you. This is the fourth installment of the Judith Price Mysteries. Don’t miss a single volume. Don’t Delay. Download This Book Now.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guava Books
• Release date: Mar 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386111290

Book preview

Introduction

In the roaring twenties of a century ago, there were two families in the Wheeling community that were very nearly at war with one another.

The Depardeaux family, from the hills south of town, by way of Callais, France, had brought an understanding of the distilling business, and in the waxing days of Prohibition, was making serious inroads into the import-export business of white lightning. Moonshine. Hootch. The stuff of shootouts and speakeasies. And Wheeling’s River port and warehouses were rife with the rough kind of customers that make such business boom.

Across the river, from the north side of Wheeling, the MacAuley family, immigrants from Ireland over the past half century have taken up the cause of civil justice, with the Sheriff and his deputies drawn from descendants from Dublin. There were laws in this new country, voted on and accepted by right-thinking individuals. If those lawbreakers from the hills didn’t want to follow the laws, the boys from the Sheriff’s Office would be glad to incarcerate them, and maybe break a few casks of the devil’s brew in the process.

But between those two houses, a story formed that would be legendary in its retelling, and surrounded a mystery, murder most foul. It would take a puzzle-posting person nearly one hundred years later to deduce the details.

Price and Prejudice is a micro-mystery, set in two acts; that explores the intellect and creativity of noted amateur sleuth and Task Force detective Judith Price. Both she and her husband, Daniel Danvers, dig into the case, not only because it suits her desire for truth, but because it may explain one of the greatest local art mysteries of the past century. This new case takes on the color scheme of a cover-up, and there may be more than one crime afoot in its aftermath.

Judith Price is a master of puzzles, word play, and anagrams, and you’re invited to a private viewing. Follow her as she draws conclusions, her eye always on the prize. Her objective will be a criminologist’s masterpiece!

Prologue

Dugan was still watching the front of the warehouse. The rest of the boys were spread out in a loose ring around the rickety old building, waiting for the ‘high sign’ from the Boss. The rain was pelting the top of his coupe, the rat-a-tat sound reminiscent of the BAR training he’d received at