Arabella Stewart Historical Mysteries

Eager to solve the crime quickly and avoid negative publicity for the resort, Bella again volunteers to help Constable Jackson Hastings, her dead brother Matt’s best friend and former comrade-in-arms, investigate. Jax resists at first, but with his department shorthanded and his war wounds hampering him, he accepts her assistance. Finding the killer must be a primary concern, but so is Bella’s safety.

As Bella and Jax pursue answers, they confront lingering shadows over the suspects, the victim, the resort, the town, and themselves. 

As the fall semester ends, Doro’s hands are full as a professor, librarian, and volunteer. She looks forward to planning and celebrating her hometown’s annual Christmas festivities, but her enthusiasm is tested when the chairwoman’s dictatorial ways create dissension among the committee members. Dissension soon turns to malice, and threats fly among the matron and several others. When she is found dead, unsettling questions arise—and so do longstanding grudges. Who caused the woman’s fatal fall from a ladder? After the chairwoman’s handyman disappears, anxiety escalates among townsfolk. Doro and her best friend, Aggie, along with two local lawmen, investigate. Can they catch the killer in time to save the holiday celebration? Or will others fall victim to the perpetrator?

What happens when a teacher from a nearby girls’ boarding school does not return from vacation? Arabella Stewart is asked to substitute, but she finds the position involves more than lesson planning. Her sleuthing skills are needed, so Bella and her friend Ida Byington, a faculty member, start investigating. Soon, Constable Jax Hastings is also on the case, and the trio work against time to solve more than one baffling absence.

A 1920s amateur whodunit.

Arabella Stewart and her best friend, Ida Byington, look forward to a long weekend with college girlfriends on a remote Lake Erie island. Bootlegged booze and hidden grievances soon shatter the peace. When a gale knocks out electricity and telephone service, the women become stranded. After one dies, Bella’s suspicions escalate. What caused the death? Who is responsible? Does danger still lurk around them?

Jax Hastings, now a Prohibition agent, returns home to see Bella, only to find her away. When he and Griff Biggins, Ida’s beau, try to reach the women by telephone, they learn about the death—but not who died. Alarmed, they head to the island, where Bella and Ida reveal their discoveries—about rumrunners on the island and the odd death of their friend. Clues point to several people who may be at the heart of a fatal reunion.

As the holiday approaches, Bella feels more festive than she has since before the Great War. Not only is her family resort flourishing, she and Constable Jax Hastings are finally courting. The future looks bright until Celeste Bouchard, a former French nurse, comes to town claiming to be Jax’s wife. Armed with a fake marriage license and a photograph of their supposed child, she confronts him. When Celeste is murdered, Jax is arrested. But Bella, despite some qualms, is determined to prove his innocence and refute a treacherous accusation.