The Fall of White City: Victorian Chicago Mysteries #1

• Nominated for Reader's Choice Awards as Best First Novel and Best Historical Mystery (LIM, February 2003)
• For Fans of Cozy Mysteries, Amateur Sleuths, and Gilded Age Chicago History

VICTORIAN CHICAGO MYSTERY SERIES
Chicago in the 1890s is the fastest growing metropolis in America. It rivals New York as the City of the Century and the epitome of the Gilded Age. This melting pot of thieves and corrupt politicians, robber barons and immigrants, is rife with scandal and social injustice. An eccentric heiress and a cub reporter find themselves repeatedly drawn into the hidden world of intrigue and murder that lurks within the shadows of the White City.

Volume One - The Fall of White City
Wealthy spinster Evangeline LeClair leads a paradoxical life. By day, she fends off marriage-minded suitors. By night, she teaches English to factory workers at a social settlement in the slums. Evangeline is quite satisfied with the status quo until murder disrupts her routine. One of her students, a penniless immigrant, has been stabbed to death in Chicago's most exclusive hotel. The girl's brother, a known anarchist, is accused of the crime.

Evangeline wheedles her admirer, Freddie Simpson, into helping her track down the real killer. Their list of possible suspects is long: a captain of industry, a denizen of the slums, a shady doctor who mixes his own drugs, and a teenage prostitute from a sporting house in the Levee District. The gleaming surface of the World's Fair casts many shadows. THE FALL OF WHITE CITY exposes the darkness at its core.

Nancy Wikarski is a fugitive from academia. After earning her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, she became a computer consultant and then turned to historical mystery and adventure fiction writing. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Society of Midland Authors, and has served as vice president of Sisters in Crime - Twin Cities and on the programming board of the Chicago Chapter. Her short stories have appeared in Futures Magazine and DIME Anthology while her book reviews have been featured in Murder: Past Tense and Deadly Pleasures. She has written the Victorian Chicago Mystery Series set in 1890s Chicago. Titles include The Fall of White City (2002) and Shrouded in Thought (2005). The series has received People’s Choice Award nominations for Best First Novel and Best Historical as well as a Lovey Award for Best Traditional Amateur Sleuth. Her seven-book Arkana Archaeology Mystery Series is an Amazon bestseller. Titles include The Granite Key (2011), The Mountain Mother Cipher (2011), The Dragon’s Wing Enigma (2012), Riddle of the Diamond Dove (2013), Into the Jaws of the Lion (2014), Secrets of the Serpent’s Heart (2015), and The Sage Stone Prophecy (2016).