Murder at the Pontchartrain
Cozy Mystery (Humorous)
6th in Series
Setting – New Orleans, Louisiana
Anamcara Press LLC (June 15, 2023)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 280 pages

Synopsis

“My name is Sydney Lockhart. I solve murders, most of which I’m the primary suspect.

My boyfriend/partner, Ralph Dixon, and I came to the Pontchartrain Hotel in New Orleans to get married. Instead, Dixon’s in jail for a double murder. I’m in a swamp, spying on the KKK. Helping me untangle this mess is my bubble-headed cousin Ruth who’s undercover as a chef at the Pontchartrain. My twelve-year-old charge, Lydia LaBeau, dressed as a voodoo queen, is looking for clues at Pat O’Brien’s in the French Quarter. Rip Thigbee, a ghost detective, is my only hope.

I’m not making any of this up. This is my life and this is what I deal with, like it or not.

So, mix yourself a Hurricane and join me in the Big Easy for another historic hotel murder case.”

Anamcara Press – Amazon

Guest Post

Sydney Lockhart’s World

By Kathleen Kaska

My big, sassy mouth landed me a job as a reporter. Being suspected of murder turned me into a private detective. One job is not that much different than the other. You snoop, you dig, you put yourself in danger. What makes my situation so unusual is that the year is 1952 and I’m a woman. My name is Sydney Lockhart.

The reason I was given the job at the newspaper went like this:

“I’m here to interview for the job, Mr. Turney.”

“You’re a woman,” he said.

“And you’re smarter than you look.”

He threw his head back and laughed. “With a name like Sydney, I thought you were a man. It is a man’s name, you know?”

“When spelled with a ‘i,’ not a ‘y. I would think an editor should know that.”

Turney picked up my application and studied it. He looked back at me. “But this is not a job a woman can handle.”

“I can think, I can write, and unlike some people I can put my biases aside and focus on the facts.”

“I see you have written for the Daily Texan. Writing for the University of Texas newspaper doesn’t compare to hard-core news reporting.”

“Martha Gellhorn was a reporter from Colliers covering the Spanish Civil War and later  became a war correspondent in WWII.”

“True, but she was also married to Ernest Hemingway.”

“I wouldn’t hold that against her.”

My pulse rose in anticipation. Then he tossed my application back on the desk. “Come in on Monday morning. I’ll see what I can do.” He ushered me out the door.

The following week, I was back at the Austin American, working in the Travel and Entertainment department, writing about who wore what to the Ladies Social Society annual banquet, and the best places to stay while traveling. It wasn’t the type of writing I was interested in. Then one day I came into the office and was told to report to Ernest Turney about an assignment regarding a musician.

“Why is he interested in entertainment news?” I asked the society editor.

“Something about the guy hating reporters and refusing interviews. He said he thought you could handle it. He wants the story bad. Just go see him.”

So I did. Now, I’m standing in front of my mirror for one final look at my disguise before heading out to the Crooked J, a seedy bar on the seedy side of town. Ernest assigned me to get an interview with the elusive Hound Dog Jackson who was performing right here in Austin. I was eager to show my stuff and hopefully move into an honest to goodness reporting job. I’d jumped at the chance to get the story even if the Crooked J was on the east side of town, even if few whites frequented the establishment, even if any woman going there alone was asking for trouble.

Trouble seemed to follow me, so what did it matter? Besides, knowing Ernest, I’m sure he didn’t care how I got the interview. I’d picked up a full suit of men’s clothes at Goodwill, complete with shiny wing tips. Confident my man clothes would disguise my gender, I glued on a mustache and stuffed my long red hair under a fedora. I got the story, but not without mishap. My male disguise worked so well, a woman tried to pick me up. The woman was the bouncer’s girlfriend. A brawl ensued, the club owner was impressed with my means of defending myself, and so was Hound Dog. Before the night was over I had my interview and five stitches in my forehead.

I stayed at the Austin American for less than a year. During that time, I’d been assigned to report on the historic Arlington Hotel and Bathhouse Row in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When I checked in to the hotel, I found a man in my room, his throat slit. I became a suspect to his murder. To save my own skin, I found the killer and got the attention of a Hot Spring Police Detective named Ralph Dixon.

My next assignment was the New Year’s Eve ball at the Luther Hotel in Palacios, Texas. Before I unpacked this time, I made sure the bathroom was free of dead bodies, donned my best outfit and went to the ball. On a crowded dance floor right before midnight, a murdered man fell into my arms. This time I wasn’t so lucky. The cards were stacked against me and I was arrested. A good lawyer bonded me out and I was on the trail of another killer. I was doing fairly well with the investigation when Dixon showed up. He claimed he was just passing through. Sure he was. Hot Springs is 600 miles away from the Texas coast. Once this case was solved, there was another murder at another hotel. Dixon was there. We decided we made a great team, joined forces and opened our detective agency in downtown Austin.

I occasionally do some freelance reporting for Ernest at the newspaper, but after Dixon and I solved a high profile murder of a Texas gubernatorial candidate, our phone has been ringing off the wall.

Things have developed quickly and we are now in New Orleans at the Pontchartrain Hotel. We just came for the courthouse where we filled out an application for a marriage license, which requires a twenty-four-hour waiting period. We need the extra time to convince the local police that we didn’t kill the dead woman in our room.

About the Author

Kathleen Kaska is the author of the awarding-winning mystery series: the Sydney Lockhart Mystery Series set in the 1950s and the Kate Caraway Animal-Rights Mystery Series. Her first two Lockhart mysteries, Murder at the Arlington and Murder at the Luther, were selected as bonus books for the Pulpwood Queen Book Group, the country’s largest book group. She also writes mystery trivia. The Sherlock Holmes Quiz Book was published by Rowman & Littlefield. Her Holmes short story, “The Adventure at Old Basingstoke,” appears in Sherlock Holmes of Baking Street, a Belanger Books anthology. She is the founder of The Dogs in the Nighttime, the Sherlock Holmes Society of Anacortes, Washington, a scion of The Baker Street Irregulars. Watch for Murder at the Pontchartrain: the 6^th Sydney Lockhart Mystery in June 2023.

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