Front Page Murder (A Homefront News Mystery) 
Historical Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Crooked Lane Books (March 8, 2022)
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages

Synopsis

In this World War II-era historical mystery series debut by Joyce St. Anthony, small-town editor Irene Ingram has a nose for news and an eye for clues.

 

Irene Ingram has written for her father’s newspaper, the Progress Herald, ever since she could grasp a pencil. Now she’s editor in chief, which doesn’t sit well with the men in the newsroom. But proving her journalistic bona fides is the least of Irene’s worries when crime reporter Moe Bauer, on the heels of a hot tip, turns up dead at the foot of his cellar stairs.

An accident? That’s what Police Chief Walt Turner thinks, and Irene is inclined to agree until she finds the note Moe discreetly left on her desk. He was on to a big story, he wrote. The robbery she’d assigned him to cover at Markowicz Hardware turned out to be something far more devious. A Jewish store owner in a small, provincial town, Sam Markowicz received a terrifying message from a stranger. Moe suspected that Sam is being threatened not only for who he is…but for what he knows.

Tenacious Irene senses there’s more to the Markowicz story, which she is all but certain led to Moe’s murder. When she’s not filling up column inches with the usual small-town fare—locals in uniform, victory gardens, and scrap drives—she and her best friend, scrappy secretary Peggy Reardon, search for clues. If they can find the killer, it’ll be a scoop to stop the presses. But if they can’t, Irene and Peggy may face an all-too-literal deadline.

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Guest Post

Many people have asked me why I wrote a book set in the 1940s, and it’s a question I’m always happy to answer.

My mother played a lot of Big Band records when I was little. Her favorite was Glenn Miller’s “String of Pearls.” I grew up with a love of that music, whether it was Miller, or Artie Shaw, or even Frank Sinatra. Mom’s best friend liked Harry James, and my great-aunt liked Guy Lombardo. Lombardo was definitely not my favorite—it was torture to have to watch Lombardo’s New Year’s Eve show on television when I wanted to watch Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve. Oh, the tragedy of having only one TV in the house—black and white at that.

But I digress.

The forties always seemed like a romantic era to me, partly because of my parents’ story. My mother was twenty one when the war broke out and she already had her own beauty shop. Her weekends were filled with going to the movies and hanging out with friends. She dated, but there was no one special. Sometime between December 1941 and 1943 (I don’t know the details) she ended up closing her shop, moving to Harrisburg, and getting a secretarial job there. In August of 1943, a friend set her up on a blind date with a handsome soldier who was stationed nearby at Fort Indiantown Gap. Two weeks later, she married this soldier and shortly after that, he was shipped overseas. Talk about a whirlwind romance!

I didn’t know most of this until I was grown and learned it second hand. My dad died when I was two and my mom when I was nineteen. I wish that I could talk to them about their romance, the war, and life in general (I have a lot of questions!) In any case, their history reinforced my love of the era. Pre-Covid, my husband and I made yearly trips to Gettysburg for the World War II weekend held at the Eisenhower Farm and the Gettysburg Visitor Center. It’s wonderful. There’s even a reenactment in the neighboring town of New Oxford, which becomes Nouveau Oxford for the day. The town is occupied by the Germans and the Americans and Brits come to liberate it. On that Saturday night, there’s a USO dance in Gettysburg. I might be the only person who gets teary eyed when my husband and I are dressed in our forties duds and walk into the dance and hear the band start up with “Moonlight Serenade.” I always feel like I’m coming home, that I’ve stepped back in time to where I really belong.

Writing a book set during World War II gives me that feeling every time I sit down at my desk. I put on my Big Band Pandora station and for a few hours every day I’m right beside Irene as she investigates the murder of one of her reporters, suspicious goings on at the local factory, dancing at the Starlight, giving her little sister a pep talk, and wondering if the new boarder at her house is what she appears to be. Sometimes it’s hard to come back to the present.

Reader, do you feel that way when you read a book? Do you find it hard to come back to reality? Did you ever wish you had a time machine and could go back to another era? I hope you’ll take a chance on reading Front Page Murder. Irene would like to take you back to May 1942 in Progress, Pennsylvania. Just maybe you’ll be like me and want to stay there.

About the Author

Joyce was a police secretary for ten years and more than once envisioned the demise of certain co-workers but settled on writing as a way to keep herself out of jail. As Joyce St. Anthony, she is the author of the Homefront News Mysteries. The first in the series, Front Page Murder, will be (or was, depending on the blog date) released on March 8, 2022. Under her own name–Joyce Tremel–she wrote the award-winning Brewing Trouble cozy mystery series. She is a native Pittsburgher and lives in the beautiful Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania with her husband and two cats–Hops and Lager.

Joyce Tremel website * Joyce St. Anthony website

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