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The
Cozy
Library
By
Diana
Vickery
The
year
is 1880.
Landscape
photographer
Susan
Carothers
is seriously
injured
in an
explosion
near
where
workers
are
laying
railroad
tracks
into
Leadville,
Colorado.
Although
she
says
two
men
died
in the
same
explosion,
almost
everyone
believes
Susan
imagined
it and
railroad
security
officers
say
they
didn’t
find
any
bodies
in the
wreckage.
One
person
who
believes
Susan’s
story
is Inez
Stannert
–
co-owner
of the
Silver
Queen
Saloon.
After
asking
some
questions,
Inez
even
believes
she
knows
who
one
of the
men
was
–
and
he’s
missing.
Emotions
are
high
in Leadville
as the
town
awaits
the
arrival
of two
Civil
War
generals:
Ulysses
S. Grant,
the
former
U.S.
president,
and
William
Jackson
Palmer,
who
heads
the
Denver
and
Rio
Grande
Railroad.
It’s
against
this
backdrop
that
Inez
begins
her
investigation
–
attempting
to discover
why
railroad
officials
are
pooh-poohing
Susan’s
story
–
and
whether
Leadville’s
distinguished
visitors
are
in danger.
Inez
has
her
own
personal
situation
to be
concerned
about,
too.
Her
husband
Mark
is missing
–
she
doesn’t
know
whether
he’s
alive
or dead
–
and
her
love
interest,
the
Reverend
Justice
B. Sands,
wants
her
to begin
divorce
proceedings.
Inez
and
Mark’s
sickly,
young
son
is back
east
with
her
family
and
she
misses
him
terribly.
The
Silver
Queen
Saloon
is doing
OK,
but
her
business
partner
Abe
Jackson
wants
to increase
business
by bringing
in some
actors
to perform.
Inez
has
history
with
one
of the
performers
and
is dead-set
against
the
move.
It’s
easy
to see
why
the
first
Silver
Rush
Mystery,
Silver
Lies,
received
so many
accolades,
including
the
Willa
(Cather)
Award
for
historical
fiction.
Ann
Parker
paints
a vivid
picture
of what
life
was
like
in the
rough-and-tumble
1880s:
a silver
rush,
a collision
of Civil
War
veterans,
Rebs
and
Yanks,
and
–
in the
days
before
background
checks
became
common
–
an easy
time
for
desperate
people
to lose
themselves
and
their
former
identities.
Fiction
and
fact
are
skillfully
interwoven
in Iron
Ties,
and
I’m
certain
anyone
who
enjoys
historical
fiction
–
or good
storytelling
-- will
want
to add
Ann
Parker
to their
list
of favorite
authors.
Readers
who
like
their
mysteries
gritty
and
realistic
(without
a lot
of gratuitous
sex,
violence
and
profanity)
will
be clamoring
for
more.
Although
“the
West”
of my
ancestors
was
further
east
and
decades
earlier,
as a
genealogist/family
historian,
I enjoyed
getting
a glimpse
into
the
lives
my 2nd
great
grandfather
and
his
ten
children
might
have
lived.
Iron
Ties
has
so much
going
for
it,
I consider
it a
“must
read.”
A big
“thank
you”
to Dani,
a Cozy
Library
visitor,
for
suggesting
Ann
Parker
as a
featured
author.
First
published
in the
Cozy
Library
August
7, 2006.
http://www.cozylibrary.com/
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