Moonshadows - (Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery) by Julie Weston (Paperback)

About the Book

Early 1920s: photographer Nellie Burns leaves Chicago for adventure and a career in the West, and lands in Ketchum, Idaho. One night, she discovers and photographs a dead body, and joins the chase to solve the mystery.

Book Synopsis

In the early 1920s, photographer Nellie Burns leaves Chicago to find adventure and a career in the West. She lands in Ketchum, Idaho. Out one night photographing moonshadows on snow, she discovers and photographs a dead body. When the body disappears and her negatives are stolen, she joins the chase to solve the mystery and find her negatives. But the Basque sheriff does not welcome her help, and the Chinese residents in town suspect Nellie herself of murder. As Nellie unravels the mystery of the missing body, she encounters a tangled web of revenge, opium addiction, obsessive love and loss, and a haunting story of devotion.

Review Quotes

Acclaim for Moonshadows:

"The reader walks effortlessly into a West long behind us, in this gorgeously written, taut mystery. Secrets are the fuel of all fiction-prepare for Moonshadows to burn brightly."

-Ridley Pearson, bestselling author of The Red Room

"A photographer's aspirations take her West in the 1920s, right into a mysterious murder case. The small town is clearly hiding many secrets, and if Nellie can't uncover them, the next corpse may be hers. This debut mystery from Weston authentically portrays the gritty mining towns and the wild beauty of Idaho while presenting a challenging puzzle."

-Kirkus Reviews

"Nellie Burns strikes out for Idaho sometime in the 1920s with the obsessive idea of photographing nighttime shadows on snow. A grizzled old miner, Rosy, guides her in the backcountry, where she flounders about in the snow, taking the photos she's dreamed of and accidentally capturing the image of a dead man. Then Weston accelerates her menacing plot, and the increasingly desperate Nellie's nighttime photos prove extraordinary. A pleasant period mystery likely to draw readers of mainstream historical fiction."

-Booklist