Murder in Vancouver 1886 by Marion Crook

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Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for Murder in Vancouver 1886 by Marion Crook. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!

Murder in Vancouver 1886
Historical Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Vancouver, BC, Canada
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Epicenter Press (WA) (May 14, 2024)
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 234 pages

Vancouver, 1886, a bustling city with a growing population and tantalizing opportunities. Some of those opportunities are illegal. When Amy MacDonald, the school teacher at Hastings Mill, discovers new Winchester ’86 rifles are being smuggled through the city, she tries to enlist the aid of the earnest but slow-witted provincial policeman. She involves a curious local newspaperman, a businessman, a knowledgeable woman of the street, and her irrepressible younger brother in her efforts to prevent the contraband from flowing to the Métis rebels in the North West.

Vancouver life is complicated by the murder of a Métis man, the persecution of the Chinese people living in the city and the intent of the mob to oust the Chinese onto boats and out of the new city. Amy manages to move between different the levels of society but not without risk of being dismissed from her teaching position. She tries to do what she believe is morally right without being discovered. All her plans and careful stratagems are disrupted suddenly and dramatically by the devastating, overwhelming fire.

Author Guest Post

Vancouver today with its gleaming towers and graceful bridges was not so elegant in 1886. Amy MacDonald, school teacher for 70 students at Hastings Mill at the edge of Vancouver comes to wooden houses and shacks, dusty streets, sawmill ash floating in the air and a general state of hustle and dreams of commerce. She lives with her younger brother and her aunt. It is her brother, Stanley, who leads her to the discovery of contraband Winchester rifles being smuggled to the North-west.

Within the confines of Victorian society which still pervades in the west, Amy tries to involve the police, who are not interested, and the newspaper owner who is interested both in the story and in Amy. She discovers the murdered body of a Metis man and tries to link it with the threat of revolution which the guns represent. The presence of the Chinese people is resented in Vancouver and Amy finds herself carefully navigating between different factions of the city. She is in physical danger as well as being in danger of being fired from her teaching position. She is beginning to find the answers to the smuggling of the guns when Vancouver is set alight and the imminent fear of the flames drives everyone to the water and Amy into an understanding of her own heart.

About Marion Crook

Marion Crook wrote mysteries: The Susan George Mysteries for young adult readers and The Megan Mysteries for middle-grade readers. Recently she produced The British Book Tour Mysteries (Camel Press) writing under the name Emma Dakin. Shadows in Sussex (Book 5) was released in 2023. Storms in the Cotswolds (Book 6) is scheduled for September 2024. As Marion McKinnon Crook, she wrote non-fiction history Always Pack a Candle: A Nurse in the Cariboo-Chilcotin. 2022 (Heritage House Publishing) which won The Lieutenant Governor’s Community History Award. A sequel Always on Call: Adventures in Nursing, Ranching and Rural Living hit the BC Bestsellers list in its first week of release. Her interest in the Victorian era took her to research 1886 in Vancouver, Canada. Hours of reading old newspapers accounts of life in that new city, and checking archives combined with her fascination with the mystery genre produce Murder in Vancouver 1886. Marion Crook lives near the Pacific Ocean in Gibsons, BC.

Website http://crookpublishing.com/

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MarionCrookAuthor

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/marion-mckinnon-crook-98542020/

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/franklinbeeach/

Purchase Links

Amazon CA – Amazon US – Amazon UK