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Summary
Summary
National bestselling author Susan Wittig Albert takes readers back in time to small-town Darling, Alabama, in the 1930s--where the Darling Savings and Trust has just closed and the women of the Darling Dahlias' garden club are betting their bottom dollar there's going to be trouble…
It's the spring of 1933 and times are tough all over. The only businessman not struggling is moonshiner Mickey LeDoux, though he still has to steer clear of federal agents. But banks are closing all over the country, and the small town of Darling is no exception. Folks are suddenly caught short on cash and everyone is in a panic.
Desperate to avoid disaster, several town leaders--including Alvin Duffy, the bank's new vice president--hatch a plan to print Darling Dollars on newspaperman Charlie Dickens' printing press. The "funny money" can serve as temporary currency so the town can function. But when the first printing of the scrip disappears, the Darling Dahlias set out to discover who made an unauthorized withdrawal.
Meanwhile County Treasurer Verna Tidwell questions whether she can trust Alvin Duffy--and the feelings he stirs up inside her. And Liz Lacy learns her longtime beau may be forced into a shotgun wedding. Seems other troubles don't just go away when there's a crisis. There'll be no pennies from heaven, but if anyone can balance things out, folks can bank on the Darling Dahlias…
Includes Southern-Style Depression-Era Recipes
Author Notes
Susan Wittig Albert was born in Illinois in 1940. In 1985, she changed careers from working as the vice president and an English professor at Texas State University to becoming a full-time writer.
During the mid- to late-1980s, Albert was a ghostwriter for the Nancy Drew mystery series. She wrote the acclaimed "Work of Her Own: How Women Create Success and Fulfillment off the Traditional Career Track" in 1992. Under the pseudonym of Robin Paige, Albert and her husband, Bill Albert, co-authored a twelve-volume mystery series set in late Victorian/Edwardian England.
Albert writes the bestselling China Bayles mystery series, which features as its main character a Texas herbalist who had been a criminal attorney in Houston. Albert also writes the Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter historical fantasy series, which is set in England during the early twentieth century.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in 1933, Albert's quietly paced fifth Darling Dahlias cozy (after 2013's The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star) works better as a portrait of a Depression-era Southern town than as a mystery. When the town's only bank temporarily closes, a few of the leading citizens of Darling, Ala., devise a plan to print scrip that will keep the local economy going. Some of the ladies of the Darling Dahlias garden club are appalled, but Verna Tidwell sees merit in the scheme and in the new bank vice-president, Alvin Duffy. Meanwhile, Liz Lacy and Fannie Champaign are distracted by romantic problems. Moonshine and a single-minded revenue agent add to Darling's woes, and a shooting and the disappearance of a satchel of scrip raise alarms. Solving these crimes falls to others, but the Dahlias might have a way to save the town. The authentic historic setting makes up for the lack of tension. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Times are tough in Depression-era Darling, Alabama. Only the two outsiders the revenuer out to shut down Mickey LeDoux's still near Dead Cow Creek, and Alvin Duffy, the new bank president brought in by the big New Orleans bank that took over the Darling bank seem to have any money. With the bank closed for an audit, Verna Tidwell, treasurer of both the county and the Darling Dahlias, the garden club, doesn't know how she'll make the county payroll. Duffy hatches a scheme to print scrip for Darling residents to use until the bank reopens. But after Charlie Dickens, the newspaper editor, prints the scrip, the satchel he puts it in goes missing. Worse, Elizabeth Lacy's longtime beau, Grady Alexander, is marrying someone else quickly. The Dahlias band together, as they do, trading small favors, bending the rules, and calling on longtime relationships to bring harmony back to their beloved town. With this fifth in the series, Albert again weaves several threads into a story that is both well-researched historical fiction and a suspenseful mystery.--Muller, Karen Copyright 2014 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The Great Depression is hitting the small town of Darling, AL. Desperate to avoid financial disaster, several upstanding citizens print their own money to help float the community. But when the scrip disappears, they are left wondering: Who made the unauthorized withdrawal? In the fifth series entry (after The Darling Dahlias and the Texas Star), the ladies' garden club investigates. (c) Copyright 2014. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
