Two Birthdays: The Calendar Mysteries, #1.5

By Juliet Kincaid

Two Birthdays, a historical mystery short story

June 22, 1899 One summer day (that just happens to be her birthday,) the dashing detective Daniel Price appears in the Price Investigations office where Minty Wilcox has worked as a stenographer/typist for about a year and carries her off to take notes on a new case the agency has been hired for. But once he starts filling Minty in on the details of the case, some of the information sounds strangely familiar. And she begins to wonder what he's really up to.

Praise for January Jinx, Book 1 in the Calendar Mystery series

The delightful, creative, and charming January Jinx introduces a terrific character in Minty Wilcox, a good old-fashioned cozy mystery persona who will surely be able to carry the planned-for series. It's Minty who drives the readable narrative, and author Juliet Kincaid keeps the pace steady and fast at the same time for quite a readable experience. The writing is appropriate for the historical setting without ever being gimmicky or archaic . . . The unique setting of 1899 Kansas City is full of flavor that never overwhelms the story and the characters. With a terrific, original, but still comfortable series concept, there are certainly big things afoot for Juliet Kincaid and Minty Wilcox's Calendar Mysteries.

A review of "Two Birthdays," a historical mystery short story

Enjoyed the unique historical details of the era and a day in the life of a working girl in historical KCMO. The undercurrent of tension between Minty and Mr. Price crackles as Minty goes about the business of extracting the details of the case of the missing moonstone brooch. A quaint tale of mystery and manners!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Juliet Kincaid
• Release date: Jun 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201028077

Juliet Kincaid

I’ve been hooked on fiction since grade school. And I’ve always preferred stories that supply adventure and escape. Humor and wit help, too. I try to write the same sort of stories and novels as the ones I like to read. In addition to the Calendar Mystery series, my published work includes the Cinderella, P. I. Fairy Tale Mysteries for grown-ups that feature Cinderella as a detective twenty years, three kids, and a few extra pounds after the ball. (Happy endings guaranteed.) My stories and novels are available as eBooks and trade paperbacks. I have also written and published Novel Basics, a concise yet complete guide to writing a novel. My daughter, Jessica Kincaid, the bead artist, and I live in a house filled with books, mostly detective fiction, just a few miles from where Minty Wilcox and Daniel Price have their adventures in the Calendar Historical Mystery stories and novels. You can contact me at juliet@julietkincaid. com, Juliet_Kincaid on Goodreads, JulietKincaid on Twitter, and JulietKincaidauthor2016 and juliet.kincaid on Facebook. To find out what work I currently have available, sign up for notifications at https://books2read.com/author/juliet-kincaid/subscribe/1/305166/

Book preview

TWO BIRTHDAYS

a historical mystery short story

by

Juliet Kincaid

Two Birthdays © 2017 by Juliet Willman Kincaid. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Juliet Kincaid except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

AzureSky Press, LLC

Overland Park, KS

Copyright © 2017

Cover Design by Juliet Kincaid

Cover Photo of Electric Park Beer Garden:

Missouri Valley Special Collections

Kansas City Public Library

Kansas City, Missouri

Two Birthdays is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, and persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

TWO BIRTHDAYS

A historical mystery short story

Table of Contents

TWO BIRTHDAYS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ALSO BY JULIET KINCAID

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TWO BIRTHDAYS

June 22, 1899

Kansas City, Missouri

The office door opening that afternoon startled Minty Wilcox, and she almost looked up to see who it was. But then she thought, I’d better keep my head down and look busy. It won’t do for the boss to catch me reading a mystery novel when I’m supposed to be hard at work. Indeed, George Mathison, the manager of the Kansas City branch of the Price Investigations detective agency, was quite strict about the office staff keeping busy, especially Minty, the newest member of the staff.

Not that there was much work to do at the moment—no one there to take dictation from, no reports to type, no papers to file.

Still, Minty closed the book with a black cover, a favorite of hers that she liked to reread that time of year, and hid it in her top desk drawer. After that, she began typing furiously at her ancient blind-strike Remington typewriting machine. As a precaution earlier,