About this item
In 1917, Jessie Carr, fourteen years old and sole heiress to her family's vast fortune, disappeared without a trace. Now, years later, her uncle Oliver Beckett thinks he's found her: a young actress in a vaudeville playhouse is a dead ringer for his missing niece. But when Oliver confronts the girl, he learns he's wrong. Orphaned young, Leah's been acting since she was a toddler.Oliver, never one to miss an opportunity, makes a proposition -- with his coaching, Leah can impersonate Jessie, claim the fortune, and split it with him. The role of a lifetime, he says. A one-way ticket to Sing Sing, she hears. But when she's let go from her job, Oliver's offer looks a lot more appealing. Leah agrees to the con, but secretly promises herself to try and find out what happened to the real Jessie. There's only one problem: Leah's act won't fool the one person who knows the truth about Jessie's disappearance.Set against a Prohibition-era backdrop of speakeasies and vaudeville houses, Mary Miley's Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition winner The Impersonator will delight readers with its elaborate mystery and lively prose.
About the Author
I'm an Army brat who has lived in Virginia most of my adult life. I received my BA and MA in history from the College of William and Mary and taught American history and museum studies at Virginia Commonwealth University for thirteen years. I am the author of 200 magazine articles, most on history, travel, and business topics, and of a dozen nonfiction books. The Impersonator (2013) was my first foray into fiction (and it won the national Mystery Writers of America award for Best First Crime Novel) ; Silent Murders (2014) is a sequel. The third, Renting Silence, came out in 2016 and the fourth, Murder in Disguise, is due in August, 2017. I'm having a ball with the Roaring Twenties era and my characters, who are starting to seem like family! Meanwhile, I have a new gothic romance, Stolen Memories, available in paperback and as an ebook.
In first grade I took a shine to Show and Tell and have never stopped. Whenever I teach or lecture, I bring Stuff along with me, historical Stuff that helps paint a picture of my subject or era. For my Roaring Twenties mystery series, I've been collecting items that relate to both period and plot. So far I have a dozen vaudeville programs, two beaded flapper dresses that belonged to my grandmother, some period magazines and advertisements, a blown-glass fisherman's float, and most recently, a bottle of mercury bichloride (empty!) , the medicine/poison that figures in Silent Murders.
The Roaring Twenties is the most fascinating decade in American history and the perfect setting for a mystery series.
