1942 sees men joining up after war is declared, and Irene Ingram takes over her father’s role at his newspaper, the Progress Herald. He’s gone to be a war correspondent. Their small town in Pennsylvania is determined to work for the war effort. But a FRONT PAGE MURDER may ruin the efforts.
An ironworks in Progress is turning out necessities for military machinery, and I was interested to learn that an order had forbidden manufacture of cars, to concentrate on jeeps, planes and more. With the expansion of Tabor, many newcomers are in town, including women workers on the production lines. They get the same derisive reaction as 22-year-old Irene does in her new role as editor in chief. Crime reporter Moe Bauer claims to be onto a story, but vanishes. A few days later Irene goes to check on his home and finds he's fallen down the cellar steps. Accidental death or – something sinister? Police Chief Walt Turner isn’t looking for trouble. Nothing ever happens here. Except, there is trouble, with workers being intimidated, shops daubed, and rumours circulating. Irene’s reporter senses tell her she’s onto something.
We see a wide spread of townsfolks, digging the victory gardens, saving metal toothpaste tubes and holding collections. At the start of each chapter is a headline about the progress of the war. Other characters include secretary Peggy Reardon, a singer turned riveter called Katherine Morningside, and the industrialist Wilfred Tabor. There’s also a splendid, perky young sister of Irene’s, Lily, a budding artist. Irene’s fiancé is away with the troops, so this is a real woman’s mystery, in which men are getting scarcer by the day.
The first Homefront News Mystery by Joyce St. Anthony is well worth a read for historical detail, and a study of women taking desperately needed roles, while being told that when the war ended, they would be back in the kitchen. FRONT PAGE MURDER is engaging and interesting, with plenty of ongoing issues which might feature in the next mystery. Irene is an old hand at reporting, but she’s just settling in to the editor’s chair.
Irene Ingram has written for her father’s newspaper, the Progress Herald, ever since she could grasp a pencil. Now she’s editor in chief, which doesn’t sit well with the men in the newsroom. But proving her journalistic bona fides is the least of Irene’s worries when crime reporter Moe Bauer, on the heels of a hot tip, turns up dead at the foot of his cellar stairs.
An accident? That’s what Police Chief Walt Turner thinks, and Irene is inclined to agree until she finds the note Moe discreetly left on her desk. He was on to a big story, he wrote. The robbery she’d assigned him to cover at Markowicz Hardware turned out to be something far more devious. A Jewish store owner in a small, provincial town, Sam Markowicz received a terrifying message from a stranger. Moe suspected that Sam is being threatened not only for who he is…but for what he knows.
Tenacious Irene senses there’s more to the Markowicz story, which she is all but certain led to Moe’s murder. When she’s not filling up column inches with the usual small-town fare—locals in uniform, victory gardens, and scrap drives—she and her best friend, scrappy secretary Peggy Reardon, search for clues. If they can find the killer, it’ll be a scoop to stop the presses. But if they can’t, Irene and Peggy may face an all-too-literal deadline.
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