Dying Grass Moon

Hennessey Reed Mystery series (Book 2)

Bordello madam and amateur sleuth Hennessey Reed doesn’t go looking for trouble. But trouble has an unnerving habit of coming looking for her.

Melancholy, Idaho Territory, 1882. Hennessey Reed learns a reclusive family has been shot dead, bound in pairs, and dumped on the outskirts of town. Were they chosen at random, left as a warning, or, as members of a burgeoning religion, murdered because of their beliefs?

Encouraged by past success as an amateur sleuth, Hennessey barrels headlong into the search for the killer. Unfortunately, a laudanum addiction and penchant for Irish whiskey can be most unhelpful when hunting a murderer. So, too, strained relations with the town marshal, a cagey Pinkerton agent, and an independent wolfhound who follows her nose, but rarely instruction.

Hennessey knows present-day events are often rooted in the past. When her investigation leads her across societal boundaries and county lines, she is pitched against villains ready and willing not only to pay the ultimate price to wreak havoc and exact revenge, but also to kill whomever gets in their way …

PLEASE NOTE: This book reveals plot details, and the villain, from the first Hennessey Reed mystery ONE FOR ANOTHER.

One For Another

Introducing Hennessey Reed: Opiate addict, Bordello Madam, Tenderfoot Sleuth (Hennessey Reed, Book 1)

Shortlisted 2019 Ngaio Marsh Awards
Best First Novel

Bordello madam Hennessey Reed suspects even the combined magic of laudanum and Irish whiskey will not soothe her distress. The girl lying violated on the undertaker’s table will remain dead, her wounds horrifying, inexplicable, and reminiscent of Indian sacrifice.

Hennessey treasures the uneasy peace she has found in the remote town of Melancholy, in 1880s Idaho Territory. However, when three more young girls are discovered she recognizes one of the victims and her hard-won equilibrium is compromised.

She decides U.S. Marshal Rafael Cooper requires her help to search for the killer but acknowledges, if consulted, he may not necessarily agree. Nevertheless, with her Bowie strapped to her calf, and wolfhound Raven at her side Hennessey sets out to investigate—a one-woman stampede.