Kirjahaku

Meet Miss Dimple It is 1942, and most of the men in the town of Elderberry, Georgia, have gone to war. One frosty morning just before Thanksgiving, young schoolmistress Charlie Carr and her fellow teachers are startled to find that the school custodian, Wilson "Christmas" Malone, has neglected to stoke the furnace or empty the wastebaskets--and then is found dead in a broom closet, the apparent victim of a heart attack. But when Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, who is as dependable as gravity and has taught Elderberry first graders--including Charlie--for nearly forty years, disappears the following day, town residents are shaken down to their worn, rationed shoes. Knowing that Miss Dimple would never willingly abandon her students, Charlie and her friend Annie begin sleuthing--and uncover danger surprisingly close to home.

In Mignon F. Ballard's Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause, life in small-town America during World War II springs vividly to life as schoolteacher Miss Dimple and her fellow townspeople battle valiantly against worry, rationing, and crime at home as well as abroad. It's September 1943, and the town of Elderberry, Georgia, including their beloved first-grade teacher, Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, has exciting plans for the Bond Rally to support the troops fighting the war abroad. Miss Dimple's friend, Virginia Balliew, has agreed to chair the big event, with the help of Buddy Oglesby. But when children discover a skeleton at the edge of a field, and Buddy disappears along with the war bond money, it's clear that something is amiss in the little town; and Miss Dimple, along with her fellow teachers, is soon on the case.

With the country in the midst of World War II, you can be sure the small town of Elderberry, Georgia, will pull together to find a missing child. And you can be equally certain that first-grade teacher, Miss Dimple Kilpatrick, will be in the search party-especially since Peggy Ashcroft is one of her students. Miss Dimple carves out a search path all her own and once again, the sharp-as-a-tack teacher is right on point. But she finds Peggy too sick to walk and it's too dark for Miss Dimple to find her way back. Luckily, she comes upon the home of an elderly artist, Mae Martha, and her young companion, Suzy, who helps ensure that Peggy returns home safe and sound. A few days later, however, Miss Dimple receives a frantic call from Suzy: Mae Martha has been murdered and Suzy is seen as the most likely suspect, because her family is Japanese. Miss Dimple and her fellow teachers Annie and Charlie don't buy it; and set out to prove Suzy's innocence, only to discover danger where they least expect it. Bringing warmth and nostalgia for small-town life, Mignon F. Ballard continues her "winning" (Publishers Weekly) cozy mystery series with Miss Dimple Suspects. Quick thinking and loyal to a fault, Miss Dimple is an amateur sleuth who will always stand up for what's right.

Searching for the mother who had abandoned her as an infant, Henrietta Meredith is drawn to Raven Rock, a small town in the mountains of North Carolina, and to the long-neglected Honeysuckle House where her mother once lived. Why did terrified Maggie Grey leave her baby with the kindly middle-aged Merediths promising to return, only to disappear forever? And what is the link between the faded snapshot of a group of young women and the dark period in the town's past? In her efforts to uncover the truth, Henrietta awakens a dormant evil, endangering her own life and the lives of those around her, the friendly people who had made a place for her in the community. Can one of them be hiding a dreadful secret? Here is the engrossing story of a young woman whose quest leads her down a dangerous, twisting path to a confrontation with unthinkable evil.

"... I was sure to be scalped and chopped into little pieces with a tomahawk. Well, it would serve them right if I was. "Although I'd rather not."* * * In the autumn of 1831, feeling as though her heart and stomach had switched places, eleven year old Nell Webb travels from her home in the small village of Athens, Georgia, to the Cherokee capital of new Echota in the northern end of the state. Because of family circumstances, it has become necessary for her to live for a time with her uncle, a printer there, and his Cherokee wife, and to attend school with the local children. Instead of the expected teepees and mud huts, Nell is surprised to find a wide main street leading through a town square bordered by neat frame buildings, not unlike those in her hometown. Homesick and resentful, Nell's friendship and adventures with her classmate, Callie, and the kindness of her uncle, aunt, and others lead her not only to a growing understanding, but respect and affection for the people she once considered primitive.As the grim threat of removal looms closer, she shares the sadness and alarm at the injustice that her friends might be forced to leave the land they love.

Aspiring actress Martha Virginia Brown was only twenty when she died in an apparent fall while appearing in summer stock in the North Carolina foothills. Now, fifty years later, her great niece and namesake, Ginger Cameron, arrives at the quaint tavern in Fiddler's Glen to unearth the forgotten details of her relative's death, and to escape the menacing overtures of a former boyfriend. According to those who knew her, Martha Brown was beautiful, talented, and full of life. She was also blatantly outspoken, and there are too many unanswered questions about the way she died. Some say it was an accident. Some say she was pushed. Others say she was a victim of the music played upon a fiddle by the ghost of a Confederate soldier--Lucifer's fiddle. But Martha's murderer proves much too real to be an apparition. Ginger soon learns the killer will stop at nothing to silence those who would expose the secret kept hidden for so many years, and she seems doomed to relive the fate of her late aunt. However, she doesn't count on the assistance of her aunt's sprightly spirit to lead her to the person responsible for her death, or on the love she has found in this unlikely place.