In the roaring twenties of a century ago, there were two families in the Wheeling community that were very nearly at war with one another.
The Depardeaux family, from the hills south of town, by way of Callais, France, had brought an understanding of the distilling business, and in the waxing days of Prohibition, was making serious inroads into the import-export business of white lightning. Moonshine. Hootch. The stuff of shootouts and speakeasies. And Wheeling’s River port and warehouses were rife with the rough kind of customers that make such business boom.
Across the river, from the north side of Wheeling, the MacAuley family, immigrants from Ireland over the past half century have taken up the cause of civil justice, with the Sheriff and his deputies drawn from descendants from Dublin. There were laws in this new country, voted on and accepted by right-thinking individuals. If those lawbreakers from the hills didn’t want to follow the laws, the boys from the Sheriff’s Office would be glad to incarcerate them, and maybe break a few casks of the devil’s brew in the process.
But between those two houses, a story formed that would be legendary in its retelling, and surrounded a mystery, murder most foul. It would take a puzzle-posting person nearly one hundred years later to deduce the details.
Price and Prejudice is a micro-mystery, set in two acts; that explores the intellect and creativity of noted amateur sleuth and Task Force detective Judith Price. Both she and her husband, Daniel Danvers, dig into the case, not only because it suits her desire for truth, but because it may explain one of the greatest local art mysteries of the past century. This new case takes on the color scheme of a cover-up, and there may be more than one crime afoot in its aftermath.
Judith Price is a master of puzzles, word play, and anagrams, and you’re invited to a private viewing. Follow her as she draws conclusions, her eye always on the prize. Her objective will be a criminologist’s masterpiece!