Tradition of Deceit

September 22, 2014
In Ernst’s exciting fifth Chloe Ellefson mystery set in 1980s Wisconsin (after 2013’s Heritage of Darkness), Chloe, who’s a curator at a living history museum, goes to Minneapolis to help her friend Ariel Grzegorczyk develop plans to revitalize the abandoned Washburn A Mill, the original home of General Mills, only to find a professor’s body hidden inside. Meanwhile in Milwaukee, Chloe’s cop boyfriend, Roelke McKenna, looks into the murder of his closest friend, Rick Almirez. Roelke’s obsessive search for the culprit provides most of the book’s power, as well as the tension, after he learns that a cop was involved in the killing. The history of Polish immigrants figures in both cases. Everybody has secrets in this action-filled cozy, including the female mill workers whose lives are chronicled in flashbacks to the early days of the mill. Agent: Andrea Cascardi, Transatlantic Literary.

October 1, 2014
A police officer and a museum curator each try to solve a separate murder case while maintaining their romantic relationship. Chloe Ellefson and Roelke McKenna have come to an engagement party for Roelke's former Milwaukee PD partner and close friend Rick Almirez. Roelke can tell that Chloe is not enjoying herself, and they part uneasily after returning home to Palmyra, where Roelke now works. Before the night is over, Roelke gets a call telling him Rick has been shot dead. Returning to Milwaukee, he discovers that Rick had been accused of drinking on the job. Roelke has such a bad feeling about the investigation that he gets a leave to investigate the killing on his own. Chloe, meanwhile, has gone to the Twin Cities, where her graduate school friend Ariel Grzegorczyk is having trouble coming up with the information she needs for a grant she's working on for the Minnesota Historical Society to turn an abandoned flour mill-now a crumbling hulk, home to street people, drug dealers and prostitutes-into a museum. On a visit to the mill, Chloe and Ariel discover the body of industrial historian and professor Everett Whyte, Ariel's Ph.D. adviser. Back in Milwaukee, evidence shows that the gun used to kill Rick came from the police evidence stores. Now Roelke trusts no one, especially after he's shot at and almost killed. His only clue is a fugitive from domestic violence who worked at the bar where Rick was seen drinking. Violence against women also seems to be involved in Chloe's investigation, as it is in a back story about Polish immigrants who worked in the mill from the 1870s to the 1920s. The latest case for Chloe (Heritage of Darkness, 2013, etc.) provides informative historical facts, two good mysteries, and the trials and tribulations of a difficult relationship.

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October 1, 2014

Curator and sleuth Chloe Ellefson (Heritage of Darkness) heads to Minnesota to help her friend Ariel, who wants to convert an old flour mill into a museum. The only obstacles: the homeless people living in the mill and a body found stuffed in a grain chute. Meanwhile back in Milwaukee, Chloe's significant other, Roelke McKenna, has a mess to clean up as well. A fellow officer has been killed in the line of duty. The two cases will jeopardize the couple's relationship as well as their lives. VERDICT Ernst keeps getting better with each entry in this fascinating series. She is a curator of collections for Old World Wisconsin, and her sixth mystery is replete with fascinating details about Minneapolis's old Washburn "A" Mill, built in 1874 and home of Gold Medal Flour. In addition, the engrossing and twisty plot offers plenty of challenges for her intelligent protagonist.

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