Church continues her Wanee Mystery series with this second installment (after Unbecoming a Lady) as the proprietress of a post-Civil War boarding house tries to solve a murder in the midst of a drought and tainted water supply. In 1876 Wanee, Illinois, Cora Countryman continues running her family’s boarding house after her mother has fled town, leaving Cora saddled with her debts. When local newspaper owner Sebastian Kanady goes missing after notifying the undertaker about a murdered man he discovered in a stream, Cora finds him at the undertaker’s, near death, bringing him to the boarding house where she nurses him back to health. But drought and the town’s now-bad water supply bring trouble to her door, leaving Cora and her boarders guarding the house’s water. As tensions rise and disease spreads, Cora continues her distrust of a traveling rainmaker hired by the town’s head trustee, especially when the rainmaker seems complicit in turning residents against Sebastian.

Church instills this captivating story with the fascinating resentments of the post-Civil War Midwest, where former Confederates hide their identities, especially as many Wanee residents fought in the war themselves. The continued hatred is only heightened by the desperation for clean water and the public’s dark sentiment for residents of Railtown, a nearby shantytown. Cora braves upsetting this volatile mix in the interest of justice. Though Sebastian is implicated in the murder, Cora, a character it’s pleasurable to cheer for, resolutely defends him, while trying to solve the murder, regardless of the danger to herself.

Though the cast of characters is somewhat extensive and may lead to confusion, the author develops the primary characters sufficiently to allow readers to differentiate between them. And despite the fact that the setting for the mystery is almost 150 years in the past, Church’s depiction of mob mentality and American fractures remains resonant.

Takeaway: Captivating post-Civil War mystery in a small Midwest town.

Comparable Titles: Gina Danna’s The Key to the South, Monica Barrie’s Alana: An Epic Post Civil War American Historical Romance.

Production grades
Cover: B+
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A