Dying Grass Moon

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...