New Books In Historical Fiction

Today I talked to Jeanne Matthews about her new novel Devil by the Tail (D.X. Varos, 2021) It’s 1867, and a 20-something civil war widow has just set up a detective agency with a former rebel soldier named Gabriel Garnick. She uses a professional name, Mrs. Paschal, so nobody connects her with the former in-laws who are trying to stop her from receiving her dead husband’s estate. Garnick and Paschal get two cases on the same day – the first to help prove a man innocent of murdering his wife, the second to find reasonable doubt for an accused murderer. Imagine their surprise when the cases turn out to be linked? And imagine 19th Century pre-fire Chicago, teeming with corrupt politicians, gambling parlors, and bawdy houses of ill-repute. Also, someone is trying to murder Quinn Sinclair, aka Mrs. Paschal. Jeanne Matthews graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in Journalism and has worked as a copywriter, a high school English and Drama teacher, and a paralegal. She worked for litigators for twent