Autumn 2024
My fondness for Wisconsin's Northwoods is evident in the continuing seductive locales for my fiction. An early reader of this manuscript said "I could tell I was north of Highway 8. I could hear the lapping waves and smell the pines."
ACCIDENTAL SUMMER addresses an unfamiliar topic: a true, tragic event that occurred in Hurley, Wisconsin over a hundred years ago -- the brutal murder of Lotta Morgan, an aspiring actress and "Lady of the Evening." To this day it remains a cold case. Encouraged to research this savage crime, Jenny Burgess' enthusiastic endeavors explore her beloved memories of the "up north" she loved as a child, at the same time she's bringing unseemly historical events to light. Her careful research (with the help of her pal Ginger) unwittingly links shameful deeds of the Pineries to the present, challenging local residents who are threatened by current evils and a Northwoods nobody really knows.
Since this book contains factual information from the 1800s I'm concerned with the demands of proof, time and place as well as makebelieve characters and invented incidents. I am including a lengthy bibliography which helped me identify the cause and perpetrator of Lotta's death.