Sweet and Lowdown is a historical mystery full of darkness and the peculiar heartache of the wayward child, a story that will stay with the reader long after the book is closed.

Europe is at war. Nazi bombers are hammering London. Wendell Willkie is giving Roosevelt a run for his money. In Kansas City, Dorie and her partner, Amos, are trying to keep the blond and beautiful Thalia Hines from destroying herself. It's not easy. The girl has every reason to escape the cold stone mansion where her mother lies dying. Eveline Hines was a decorated war hero during the First World War. Now she's struggling to protect her only daughter from men who lust over her inheritance even more than her curves. An old friend of Amos's, Eveline is slipping away from cancer while her daughter carouses in the swank nightclubs and back-alley bars of the city.

In the rich milieu of a bygone time, themes as far-reaching as American fascists, a third-term president, and an America preparing for war provide color for the intimate portrait of a powerful woman bearing witness to the destruction of all she loves. For the Hines family, nothing will ever be the same in this powerful story of maternal love and family secrets, and the disastrous attempts to mingle them.

A note from the author:

"Why read a book about peculiar heartbreak and darkness? Better yet, why write one? This book contains what some may call dark themes because of its time period. Things were looking pretty bleak in 1940. Europe was fighting, France, Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia had fallen, England was under attack. Roosevelt was building boats and arms as fast as he could. A peacetime draft was instituted in the USA, something few remember because it was hardly needed. Recruits flooded in to sign up for the army, navy, and best of all, to be pilots."

"Dorie Lennox wishes she could be a pilot, as we found out in One O'clock Jump . Will she get her chance? Maybe, maybe not, with that bad knee. In Sweet and Lowdown ,the assignment takes Dorie and Amos Haddam, her boss, to a big, cold mansion where an invalid wants a wild, undependable daughter watched. Sound familiar? It should. So began one of mysterydom's most famous works, The Big Sleep. It came out in 1940, with no mention of wartime jitters at all. Just some of the best American prose ever written, and an attitude that has been delighting readers for sixty years."

"I didn't rewrite The Big Sleep , but this is an homage of sorts. Genders are different, runaway spouses are different, even the wayward girl herself is different. And the ending, of course. But you'll have to wait and see about that."

"Happy reading."

Lise