Miss Kopp Just Won't Quit

July 2, 2018
Deputy Constance Kopp, of Bergen County, N.J., comes under scrutiny during the brutal 1916 election season in bestseller Stewart’s fraught fourth Kopp Sisters novel (after 2017’s Miss Kopp’s Midnight Confessions). While her mentor and boss, Sheriff Robert Heath, runs for Congress, the real-life Constance prepares for a successor less supportive of the “lady deputy.” Her extracurricular investigation into the case of Anna Kayser, a seemingly sane woman whose husband and doctor conspired to send her to a mental institution, unexpectedly threatens to affect the election. Stewart draws on newspaper accounts from the era for the vicious rhetoric aimed at Constance, whose audacity at working in a male-dominated profession provides political fodder for her boss’s opponents. Although the Kayser story eventually loses steam, Stewart skillfully builds nail-biting suspense around the election results and Constance’s subsequent employment prospects. The blend of practicality, forthrightness, and compassion in her first-person narration is sure to satisfy series fans and win new admirers. Author tour. Agent: Michelle Tessler, Tessler Literary Agency.