Breakfast at the Tremont Beacon Hill mansion is much better than the porridge Mrs. Mulcahey serves in her Northie boarding house. Especially when Mary runs in unexpectedly, her kimono pulled tight. She’s chased by her equally beautiful sister, Katherine, demanding a hairbrush.
I’m there to try on their father’s old tux, since my own father threw me out without anything. Tremont’s commanded me to attend his oldest daughter Olivia’s graduation dance party. And since he’s staked my fledgling business, I dare not defy him.
So tonight, reluctantly, I’ll face those who consider me a stereotypical Irish drunkard, arrested in a speakeasy and expelled from Harvard. They don’t know that I rarely drink, given my boxer’s regimen. Hadn’t even been at that speakeasy long enough to get a drink.
Word is getting around that I’ve found the dean’s long-lost statuette, stolen off the docks along with the jeweled King’s Collar. But it disappeared again and the man who took it was murdered. Tremont says I should find them for the dean so I can graduate. How can I do that, when I’ve no idea where it is? And if I do give it to the dean, what about those other men who demanded that I find it for them or they’ll kill me? One of those is violent King Solomon, Boston’s biggest mobster, who somehow considers me one of his gang. All just because I didn’t tell the cops anything when that mug got killed.
There’s nothing wrong with my appetite, though. Eggs, bacon, grilled tomatoes, toast – a feast. I eat, ignored by the girls while Tremont’s servant alters the tuxedo. My belly full, I take the borrowed tuxedo with me to my little store.
There, alone for most of the day, I wonder. Will I get to dance with any of the Tremont girls? Will my parents be there tonight? How can I face the contempt of their friends?
I suppose the disdain of Boston’s elite should be the least of my concerns. There’s Momma, stuck at home with my perpetually angry father. I have a business to build, one that already got me mugged by a competitor. And there’s another gang, upset with me over $200 in loot taken by the police because my partner ratted them out. These mugs want me to make good or else. I don’t have that much money!
Not to mention the cutthroats who want the King’s Collar and expect me to find it.
What can possibly go wrong next?
THE KING’S COLLAR
Genre: Historical Mystery 1920s
Release: June 2026
Format: Print
Purchase Link
Boston, May 1929. Expelled from Harvard and disowned by his father, Charlie Bohannon is down to his last nickel when he stumbles across a chance at salvation: a priceless Egyptian statuette hiding in the smoky recesses of a speakeasy. Learning it was stolen from a long-ago expedition led by his college dean, he sees returning it as his only shot at redemption-but the plan shatters when the artifact is stolen and the thief is murdered.
From the corrupt halls of power where Joseph Kennedy pulls the strings to the seedy docks of the Atlantic, Charlie suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of several dangerous men. They don’t just want the statue; they want its legendary counterpart: the jewel-encrusted King’s Collar. They think Charlie can find it. And they’ll happily kill for it.
Aided in his quest to find the King’s Collar by daring socialite Olivia and salty ex-sailor Punchy, Charlie plunges into a shadow-game where killers hide in plain sight. When his friends are kidnapped, the hunt for the Collar becomes a race against time. In the cutthroat world of the Prohibition era, Charlie must find the treasure-or pay for it with their lives.
Meet the author
Jeff Tanner’s debut, THE KING’S COLLAR publishes June 30, and DOLLS, second in the Boston Bones series on December 8 (Koehler Books). A college educator, he taught in a dozen countries and published 15 books on business. He and his wife Karen share their Colonial-era home on Virginia’s Eastern Shore with Boo, a Maltese and Peggy, a senior chicken. He chairs Virginia’s Racing Commission, and races his horses in other states.