Death & The Red Headed Woman
by Loretta Ross
Paperback: 264 pages
Publisher: MIDNIGHT INK (February 8, 2015)
ISBN-13: 978-0738743936
Synopsis
Auctioneer Wren Morgan is cataloging the contents of the Campbell house, an ante-bellum mansion with a Civil War-era lost jewels legend. She was hoping to find something interesting, but the naked dead guy on the stairs is an unwelcome surprise. When the body turns out to belong to a small-time criminal with ties to a more recent jewel heist, Wren suddenly finds herself face-to-face with Death.
Death Bogart (pronounced "Deeth") is a disabled Marine combat vet, down on his luck and trying to start over as a private eye and part-time bounty hunter. The stolen jewels he's searching for are the final evidence needed to convict a murderer -- and the reward money could turn Death's life around.
In Wren, Death finds a friend and a willing ally -- someone to help him learn to overcome his new physical limitations, and possibly even a second chance at love. But Death and Wren aren't the only ones searching for treasure. Two ruthless men are also on the hunt, and they will do anything to eliminate the competition. To survive, Death and Wren will have to solve two mysteries spanning a century and a half and outwit a pair of cold-blooded killers.
Guest Post
My first book,
Death and the Redheaded Woman, is set in the fictional town of East Bledsoe
Ferry, Missouri. While the location is made up, it's based on the small towns
that surround my rural home, and there really is a place called East Bledsoe
Ferry.
In the 1800's,
Bledsoe Ferry provided a way across the Osage River at Warsaw, below Kaysinger
Bluff. When Harry S Truman Dam went up in 1970, the land immediately below the
dam on both sides of the river became a park. The west park contains the
municipal ball fields and is a popular destination, but I prefer East Bledsoe
Ferry Park. It's a triangular piece of land, nestled below a wooded bluff, with
the Osage River to the west and the upper end of Lake Of The Ozarks to the
east.
I wrote much of the
first draft of Death and the Redheaded Woman at a picnic shelter overlooking
the lake. My favorite place to sit is just a hundred yards or so from the boat
ramp, and I fully expect to someday see someone sink a truck. The boat ramp
area is also where returning fishermen clean their catch and dump the remains
back in the lake, which attracts scavengers.
There's nothing to
inspire a scene with a dead body like looking up to find yourself being watched
by a flock of vultures.
A mile or so to the
south of the Ferry Park, Warsaw's only remaining swinging bridge crosses the
Osage. At the east end of the bridge, a big, square building with a two-story
deck overlooks the river. Right now it's a bar and before that it was a bonds
office, but when I was writing my first book it was a Chinese restaurant and
was the inspiration for the Chinese restaurant where my main characters, Wren
Morgan and Death Bogart, have lunch and read fortune cookies in chapter seven.
In other parts of
the book I mention a character from Coldspring and a baseball game played at
Tebo. Both place names really exist. Coldspring is the name of the road which,
when it crosses Missouri state highway 7, becomes the Dam Access Road.
Tebo is the
Anglicized version of the French Thibeaux or Thibaut. It dates back to the
French occupation of Missouri in the first half of the eighteenth century and
all three spellings are still common in the area. There is a Tebo Creek and a
Thibaut Point and my parents are buried in the Tebo Baptist Cemetery at
Leesville.
There's a mention
in the book of "the Barker arm of Tebo Creek". Barker Creek is a
smaller creek that feeds into Tebo Creek. If you ever visit Truman Lake, you'll
find that the signs on bridges tell you what arm of the lake you're crossing.
When the dam went in, water backed up on the Osage River and also along its
many tributaries, creating a sprawling lake with a coastline longer than
California's seashore. On a map it looks kind of like a bizarre lizard climbing
up the state.
The Tebo arm and
the Barker arm make up the northernmost portion of the lake. They're in a
marshy lowland that's kept as a Wildlife Management Area by the Missouri
Department of Conservation. There's also a Little Tebo Creek, and this is where
Thibaut Point is located.
In my book, East
Bledsoe Ferry is located in Rives County. Rives County is the old name of Henry
County, where I live. When the county was organized in December of 1834 it was
named in honor of William Cabell Rives, a Virginia politician who had studied
under Thomas Jefferson. In 1841, because Rives had changed his political stance
in ways which, to be perfectly honest, I'm not really clear about, the name of the
county was changed to Henry after Patrick Henry.
The name Rives
survives in a short, oddly-oriented street called Rives Road. (When I was in
grade school my older brother, Danny, briefly owned a popular steak house on
Rives Road. Unfortunately, it burned down after only about a year in business.)
The historic
Campbell House in my book is inspired by several beautiful antebellum houses
that survive, and the events that involved the historic Campbell family were
based in reality as well. Henry County is only one county away from the
Missouri-Kansas state line, scene of so much violence from the 1830's through
the end of the Civil War. Indeed, the county to the west is Bates County, which
was in the center of the district devastated by General Ewing's wildly unpopular
General Order 11.
Faced with the task
of fighting guerrilla-style Confederate marauders such as Quantrill's Raiders,
Ewing ordered all residents of the district he commanded to turn over their
grain to the military and evacuate their homes. Those who could prove loyalty
to the Union would be allowed to move into the fortified cities, all others
were required to leave the district. After the deadline, Union forces burned
all remaining standing grain and any buildings deemed big enough to be useful to
the enemy. What the soldiers spared, natural wildfires often did not. There is
little left in Bates County now that predates the war.
Missouri painter
George Caleb Bingham, who was a member of Ewing's staff, begged him to rescind
the order. When he refused, Bingham painted a famous painting called Martial
Law, showing weeping citizens being driven from their homes by a pitiless
cavalry officer said to be modeled on Ewing. Before the war, Ewing had had
political ambitions. After issuing General Order 11, there was never any chance
that he'd be elected to office.
The naked dead man on the stairs at the beginning
of the book is entirely a product of my imagination. I don't know if that will
comfort of disturb you, but I do hope that, if you read my book, you enjoy it.
About This Author
Loretta Ross is a writer and historian who lives and works in rural Missouri. She is an alumna of Cottey College and holds a BA in archaeology from the University of Missouri - Columbia. She has loved mysteries since she first learned to read. Death and the Redheaded Woman will be her first published novel.
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