Bathing Beauties, Booze and Bullets (Flappers #2)
Author: Ellan Mansoor Collier
Genre: New Adult Jazz Age Mystery
Expected Release Date: April 2013
Description:
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.
About the first book in the series:
Flappers, Flasks and Foul Play
Release Date: July 1, 2012
Description:
"Boardwalk Empire" meets
"Midnight in Paris" in this soft-boiled historical mystery, inspired by
actual events. Rival gangs fight over booze and bars during Prohibition
in 1920s Galveston: the "Sin City of the Southwest." Jazz Cross, a
21-year-old society reporter, feels caught between two clashing
cultures: the seedy speakeasy underworld and the snooty social circles
she covers in the Galveston Gazette.
During a night out with her best friend, Jazz witnesses a bar fight at the Oasis--a speakeasy secretly owned by her black-sheep half-brother, Sammy Cook. But when a big-shot banker with a hidden past collapses there and later dies, she suspects foul play. Was it an accident or a mob hit?
Soon handsome young Prohibition Agent James Burton raids the Oasis, threatening to shut it down if Sammy doesn't talk. Suspicious, he pursues Jazz, but despite her mixed feelings she refuses to rat on Sammy. As turf wars escalate between two real-life rival gangs, Sammy is accused of murder. Jazz must risk her life and career to find the killer, exposing the dark side of Galveston's glittering society.
During a night out with her best friend, Jazz witnesses a bar fight at the Oasis--a speakeasy secretly owned by her black-sheep half-brother, Sammy Cook. But when a big-shot banker with a hidden past collapses there and later dies, she suspects foul play. Was it an accident or a mob hit?
Soon handsome young Prohibition Agent James Burton raids the Oasis, threatening to shut it down if Sammy doesn't talk. Suspicious, he pursues Jazz, but despite her mixed feelings she refuses to rat on Sammy. As turf wars escalate between two real-life rival gangs, Sammy is accused of murder. Jazz must risk her life and career to find the killer, exposing the dark side of Galveston's glittering society.
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).
Book 1 Purchase Links:
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Thanks for hosting BATHING BEAUTIES and FLAPPERS today! Hope you like the new covers--enjoy!
ReplyDeleteBest, Ellen