The Bootlegger's Nephew - Softcover

Wisseman, Sarah

3.29

7 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1591333725 ISBN 13: 9781591333722

Publisher: Hilliard & Harris, 2012

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"The Bootlegger's Nephew has everything I've come to expect from a Wisseman mystery!"—Molly MacRae, author of Wilder Rumors and Lawn Order A gunshot wound in the middle of the night—the last patient in a long tiring day for Dr. Earl “Illinois” Junker or Doc Junker to the little town of Big Grove, Illinois. The victim—a very drunk Nathan Donaldson with a large hole in his leg—smelled of bad booze. Doc wasn't sure which condition was more life-threatening. It is 1923 and life for Doc Junker is getting complicated. In addition to patients with broken limbs, complicated pregnancies and colds and influenza, Doc Junker senses that the population of is getting sicker—succumbing to ailments that they should survive. Prohibition had spurred a black market trade of liquors and potions that contained a lot more than crude alcohol—heavy metals, opiates and medicinal herbs like digitalis that in homemade concoctions could be dangerous. With the number of illegal speakeasies sprouting up all over the county, the chance of deadly complications was a reality. Now he could add gunplay to the list of hazards the town's people could face. Nate claims he thwarted a burglary, but Doc suspects he was digging for artifacts on someone else's land and was shot for it. There was a cottage industry in the area of archeological digging. Doc knew because it was his hobby too, but he approached his explorations scientifically—Nate was in it for the money. When Doc's friend and patient, Harry Stipes, a local reporter for the paper suddenly takes ill and dies in his arms, Doc discovers an amber flask in his pocket with the name Blue Fire on the label. Harry had been complaining of “seeing yellow” right before he died and Doc suspects that Harry's death is not due to his heart condition at all. Suddenly, the bad feeling that has settled over Doc Junker for the last few months takes a sinister turn—Harry had been working on a story about local bootlegging. Doc Junker starts his own investigation to find Harry's killer and get to the bottom of the mysterious malaise that affects the people of Big Grove.

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About the Author:

Sarah Underhill Wisseman writes two series of archaeological mysteries. The first contemporary series stars Lisa Donahue, an archaeologist and museum curator. The Bootlegger’s Nephew begins the second series of historical (Prohibition) mysteries featuring physician and amateur archaeologist Illinois Junker and his nineteen-year-old flapper daughter Anna. Sarah hadn’t a clue that she wanted to be an archaeologist until she traveled to Israel right after her freshman year in college. There she ate felafel, fell in love with Jerusalem, camped illegally on Masada, and spent a month at the excavation of biblical Beersheba. Once hooked by archaeology, she returned for her junior year at Tel Aviv University, an experience that changed her life. Back in the U.S., she completed her B.A. in Anthropology at Harvard University and volunteered in the Harvard Semitic Museum and the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then she left her home state of Massachusetts and moved to Philadelphia for graduate school in Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology at Bryn Mawr College. There she met a medical student, Charlie Wisseman, who became her husband in 1975. Sarah had just finished her M.A. and was working on her Ph.D when Charlie landed his first job as a pathologist working for the Public Health Service in Cincinnati. She seized the opportunity to learn more about art conservation by volunteering in the laboratory at the Cincinnati Art Museum. When her husband migrated to a job in Urbana, Illinois, Sarah became a curator, grant writer, and fundraiser at the World Heritage Museum, located in a creepy, fourth-floor attic at the University of Illinois. Somehow she survived the experience of working there while raising two children, Nick and Emily. Then Sarah was lured away from the museum world into archaeological science. She currently directs the Program on Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials (ATAM), also at the University of Illinois. The Bootlegger’s Nephew is Sarah’s fifth mystery. The earlier Lisa Donahue mysteries include: Bound for Eternity (Finalist in the 2004 St. Martin’s Press Malice Domestic contest for Best First Traditional Mystery, published in 2005); The Dead Sea Codex (2006); The Fall of Augustus (2009), and The House of the Sphinx (2009). Sarah currently lives in Champaign, Illinois, with her husband and two cats. For more information about her novels, short stories, and articles, visit www.sarahwisseman.com

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