Author Name: Jennifer Berg

Book Title: The Hatbox Murders

Book Genre: Historical mystery

Release Date: March 28, 2017

Synopsis: Seattle, 1956. Inspector Riggs doesn’t believe in “women’s intuition.” But when a sharp stenographer keeps insisting that her friend’s death was no accident, Riggs agrees to have another look. The more he investigates, the more he realizes the dead heiress was leading a mysterious double life. His former partner, Victoria, agrees to go undercover, but when the murderer strikes again, Victoria will have to play a leading role in order to catch the killer.

Excerpt:  Riggs raised his eyebrow. “So, how long had you known her?”

Sylvester gulped down a bite of meatloaf. “About ten months. I met her at the Blue Bay Tavern. She was new in town and I bought her a beer. By the end of the night, she gave me her telephone number, Eastlake 243.”

Riggs poured some milk in his coffee. “What did you argue about that night?”

“I don’t know,” Sylvester groaned. “Ruby was short on cash, as usual, and she was all excited about this crazy scheme to come up with some dough. It was something to do with her friend, Ann Marie.”

“What was her plan?”

“I told you, I don’t know! Ruby was always inventing crazy stupid plans.

Something with her friend, or she was going to be able to use her friend to pull it off. Ah,

I don’t know, I don’t listen to that sort of junk. I’d already had a couple beers and I wasn’t paying attention. I told her if she was hard up for cash, she should just go ask her rich uncle.”

“Is that when she left?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Maybe. She told me I could go to hell, and she grabbed her purse and left.” He looked down and whispered, “I never saw her after that.”

“You stayed in the bar?”

Sylvester leered at Riggs. “Yeah, I stayed in bar. I ordered another beer if you want to know. And another one after that, and if you don’t believe me, you can go ask the bartender ’cause he was there all night. He can tell you that I stayed ‘til closing. So I couldn’t possibly have killed Ruby Pike.”

Riggs sipped his coffee and said, “Mr. Finnegan, Roberta Pike committed suicide.”

About the author: Jennifer Berg grew up on a small peninsula on Puget Sound where she dug for clams, built her own rafts and camped in a tree house, a tool shed, and a teepee. She attended the University of Washington where she majored in History. When she’s not concocting new mysteries, Jennifer spends her time painting watercolors, gardening herbs and succulents, and knitting odd creations. She currently lives in San Diego with her husband and their Appenzeller Sennenhund. Visit Jennifer at https://jenniferberg.me/

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