Design by AM Sardar & Ash Collins
The Yankee Quartet; Four Charlotte Holmes mysteries set in the United States during the 1920s.
Shinbone City, Kansas, USA, 1926
Charlotte & Watan travel to the mid-west in response to a cry of help from her step-son, Cherokee Joe.
They find a city in the grip of a ruthless oil baron, Alice Seaton. Caught in the middle is Joe, charged with rape, whose lynching our heroes interrupt.
Displacing the corrupt Sheriff, Charlotte soon comes into conflict with the Seaton’s and the city folks beholden to the oil company.
Whilst Charlotte strives to maintain law & order her son, George, falls in love with a native girl, but incurs the animosity of the Seatons, especially Bullwhip Billy.
As our heroes investigate further, revealing decades old injustices, Charlotte's and Randle's marriage comes under strain.
In India, Branwell is busy organising the wedding of his daughter, Lauren, hosting the Holmes’ clan, mollifying his future in-laws and catching the poisoner intent on ruining it all.
Charlotte's motto 'truth will out' proves ruinously prophetic for her & Branwell.
Author's Notes - Spoiler Warning
This book is the third instalment in the Yankee Quartet, four stories set in the USA during the 1920s, which will traverse the great continent westwards.This book is a continuation of plots established in the last book and brings those plot points to a conclusion. The impact of this book will resonate in the next one.
The Yankee Quartet was very much imagined as a connected series of books, one long journey across America from the East to the West Coast.
This book is set in the fictitious city of Shinbone and imagines an oil town struggling with its corrupt past. I'm a great fan of Western films and this book was an opportunity to play around with that form, by injecting into the frontier town our English Lady. The main inspiration for the story was the old James Stewart film, Destry Rides Again, which subverted conventional Western tropes by having a hero who was quick-witted rather than quick on the draw.
In addition this book allowed me to further develop George's character, who'd played second fiddle to the older children; Emily, Lauren & Callum.
Meanwhile in India I changed the format and wrote Branwell's account of Lauren's wedding as a West End play, this was a challenge to write but also great fun.
This book is most definitely told in two very distinct voices - I hope you enjoy it.
