Chronicles of a Lady Detective Series

An old flame…an assassin's bullet…the event of the season…. November 1885  Although Penelope Hamilton Wynch doesn't especially miss her estranged husband, she does yearn for the excitement of the old days when they worked together on assignments from the Pinkerton Agency. Against her better judgment, she agrees to help him on a new case: to go undercover in the household of a wealthy industrial tycoon who's been the victim of factory sabotage and an assassination attempt, just as the family is about to sponsor a cotillion for their debutante daughter.  As Pen works the case while dodging her husband's attempts at reconciliation, she encounters another old flame, who happens to be the prime suspect. Is she falling for a would-be assassin? Can she learn the truth before he tries again?

Missing jewels...a haunted inn...a long-held secret... Penelope Hamilton Wynch, one of the few female operatives employed at the Pinkerton Agency in 1886, is sent to the Adirondacks to investigate the mysterious happenings at Schroon Lake Inn, newly renovated to cater to New York City's upper crust on summer holiday. Rumors of ghosts are bad enough, but when expensive jewelry disappears, the owner's livelihood is at stake. A woman's touch is needed. Pen's boss, William Pinkerton, thinks he has given her the perfect cover. She is to play the part of an eccentric spirit medium, eager to experience the purported ghostly manifestations.  Unfortunately, her cover will not remain intact for long, and there are those behind the scenes who are desperate to keep the secrets of Schroon Lake Inn from coming to light. Will Pen's discoveries prove fatal? She would have to be truly clairvoyant to know....

Lady detective Penelope Hamilton must navigate a labyrinth of 1880s politics, high society, and murder. On a January night in 1887, trouble comes knocking at Pinkerton detective Penelope Hamilton's door in the form of a sulky young runaway. The girl turns out to be the grandniece of an influential senator, who hires Pen to escort her and her friend from Chicago to his Washington, DC home. What seems a simple assignment takes an alarming turn when a hired thug shadows them on the train, and Pen stays on the case in Washington for the girls' safety. But in the days that follow, the senator's home is broken into, his driver goes missing, and she is pursued along dark city streets and nearly captured. Obviously, Miss Hamilton is thwarting someone's plans, and such an encumbrance must be removed. In a search for answers to keep herself and her young charges safe, Pen must tread carefully within the confines of 1880s back-room politics and business tycoons with a lot to lose, while resisting the attentions of an attractive but not-quite-reformed jewel thief who knows far too much about her. She'll need more than her lockpicks and derringer this time, if she is to save them all.  THE CASE OF THE RUNAWAY GIRL is the third adventure in the CHRONICLES OF A LADY DETECTIVE series featuring 1880s Pinkerton detective Penelope Hamilton.

A Christmas bounty of murderers and thieves…   Pinkerton detective Penelope Hamilton is happiest when she's working on a case. This Christmas season of 1887 should be very merry indeed, as she has two. One seems simple enough—a surveillance job for her estranged husband, Frank, a fellow Pinkerton. The other promises to be much more interesting. How did a society matron's valuable necklace, lent a year before to a friend who was then murdered by a thief, turn up around the neck of a young debutante from Chicago's high society?   All too soon, Pen's inquiries stir up trouble, and now a young mother and child are in harm's way, an assassin is stalking Frank, and a killer claims another victim. Pen needs more than her trusty lockpicks and derringer this time, so she turns to allies old and new, including an impulsive young society girl, a snoopy housemaid (who's surprisingly good at knots) and, most of all, a distractingly handsome and supposedly reformed jewel thief.    One thing is clear—she's going to need a Christmas miracle to save them all.

When all the world's a stage, and a murderer waits in the wings…   Fleeing her mother's attempt at matchmaking, Pinkerton detective Penelope Hamilton Wynch travels to a Connecticut hotel for a straightforward assignment: escort her sister-in-law Flora to New York, where she is to serve as a witness in a counterfeiting case. But Flora—an understudy player in a production riddled with strange accidents—is poised to assume the lead role and refuses to leave town.   Coaxing a reluctant witness is the least of Pen's worries after a knife-wielding intruder breaks into Flora's suite in the dead of night. Pen thwarts the attack—at the cost of her second-best shirtwaist, no less—but the man escapes. Are the counterfeiters trying to silence Flora? The lady in question remains stubbornly uncooperative.   With more questions than answers, and the growing suspicion that someone in the hotel—possibly in the acting company—is working against them, Pen turns to her trusty lockpicks and derringer, along with her good friend Cassie, in a search for answers.   But probing secrets comes with a price…and the acting life can be just as hazardous as detecting.

Money, love, and murder in 1880s Newport high society…   Pinkerton detective Penelope Hamilton is summoned to fashionable Newport to investigate the two-year-old death of a wealthy matron. Did she fall from the Cliff Walk's Forty Steps in the middle of the night, as was presumed, or was she pushed by her much-younger husband?   The case is personal this time, since Pen's client is her own mother—breaking her near-decade of silence—and the man under scrutiny is to marry Pen's cousin in a week's time.   The lady detective discreetly enlists the help of a local, but the inquiry quickly unravels when he turns up dead. To make things worse, Pen's identity as a Pinkerton is uncovered by Newport's most prominent summer resident, whose complaint to her boss brings Pen's estranged husband and fellow Pinkerton, Frank Wynch, to Newport.   With her cousin's wedding day nearly here and no answers yet, Pen has no choice but to accept Frank's help while dodging his romantic overtures. Nothing like a little danger to heighten an already-fraught relationship, as they work to expose a desperate adversary…who could prove deadly to them both.