Publication date: April 2013
Genre: New Adult Jazz Age Mystery
Genre: New Adult Jazz Age Mystery
Blurb:
It’s 1927 in Galveston, Texas—the “Sin City of the Southwest.” Jasmine
(“Jazz”) Cross is an ambitious 21-year-old society reporter for the
Galveston Gazette who tries to be taken seriously by the good-old-boy
staff, but the editors only assign her fluffy puff pieces, like writing
profiles of bathing beauties. The last thing Jazz wants to do is compare
make-up tips with ditzy dames competing in the “International Pageant
of Pulchritude and Bathing Girl Revue.”
She’d rather help solve the murders of young prostitutes who turn up all over town, but city officials insist on burying the stories during Splash Day festivities. After Jazz gets to know the bathing beauties, she realizes there’s a lot more to them than just pretty faces and figures. Jazz becomes suspicious when she finds out the contest is sponsored by the Maceos, ruthless Beach Gang leaders and co-owners of the Hollywood Dinner Club, where the girls will perform before the parade and pageant.
Worse, her half-brother Sammy Cook, owner of the Oasis, a speakeasy on a rival gang’s turf, asks her to call in a favor from handsome Prohibition Agent James Burton—an impossible task that could compromise both of their jobs and budding romance. While Agent Burton gives her the cold shoulder, she fends off advances from Colin Ferris, an attractive but dangerous gangster who threatens Sammy as well as Burton. In the end, she must risk it all to save her friends from a violent killer hell-bent on revenge. Inspired by actual events.
She’d rather help solve the murders of young prostitutes who turn up all over town, but city officials insist on burying the stories during Splash Day festivities. After Jazz gets to know the bathing beauties, she realizes there’s a lot more to them than just pretty faces and figures. Jazz becomes suspicious when she finds out the contest is sponsored by the Maceos, ruthless Beach Gang leaders and co-owners of the Hollywood Dinner Club, where the girls will perform before the parade and pageant.
Worse, her half-brother Sammy Cook, owner of the Oasis, a speakeasy on a rival gang’s turf, asks her to call in a favor from handsome Prohibition Agent James Burton—an impossible task that could compromise both of their jobs and budding romance. While Agent Burton gives her the cold shoulder, she fends off advances from Colin Ferris, an attractive but dangerous gangster who threatens Sammy as well as Burton. In the end, she must risk it all to save her friends from a violent killer hell-bent on revenge. Inspired by actual events.
Check out book 1 in the series:
About the author:
Ellen Mansoor Collier is a Houston-based freelance magazine
writer/editor whose articles, essays and short stories have
been published in several national magazines. Formerly she's worked as a
magazine editor, and in advertising and public relations (plus endured a
hectic semester as a substitute teacher). She graduated from the
University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Magazine Journalism,
where she enjoyed both coffee and colorful cocktails. A flapper at
heart, she’s the owner of DECODAME, specializing in Deco to retro
vintage items (www.art-decodame.com).
Many thanks for hosting BATHING BEAUTIES today!
ReplyDeleteBest, Ellen