The ceiling fan has opinions this morning. Round and round it goes, thwacking the humid air with all the subtlety of a vaudeville drummer who’s lost the beat. Somewhere to my left, the oscillating fan has joined the chorus. Together, they form a percussion section that would make even Tex Guinan wince.

I should know. I’m supposed to be writing about her.

The assignment seemed perfectly reasonable last night at El Fey, when that final gin rickey appeared before me like a gift from benevolent gods. “Just one more,” I’d said, employing the sort of optimism usually reserved for stockbrokers and engaged couples.

Now here I am, squinting against the morning light. June in New York with a head full of cotton batting and last night’s regrets is a fresh hell that Dante somehow overlooked–the forgotten tenth circle. Still, my deadline looms.

Five hundred words on Tex Guinan, the blonde huckster who greets her speakeasy patrons with “Hello, sucker!” and means it affectionately. A woman who works a room like nobody’s business and pours illegal liquor with the brash elan of a carnival barker.

My untouched typewriter sits across the room, silent and judgmental. It knows about the gin rickeys—plural, regrettably plural.

The heat presses down like a wool blanket someone’s left on a radiator. My mouth tastes of last night’s poor decisions. All over this sweltering city, people are already at their desks, being productive and virtuous.

I should get up. I should bathe. I should face that typewriter and those five hundred words about Tex.

But first there will be coffee. Strong coffee. Coffee so dark and bitter it could strip paint from a Duesenberg.

Coffee will fix this. Coffee fixes everything.

Or so I tell myself, shuffling toward the kitchen, where redemption is just a percolator away.

Except redemption has company this morning.

The neighbor’s cat has invaded. Again. Black fur, white paws, the devil in its yellow eyes—it sits on my counter like a furry magistrate.

Felix glares at me. I glare at Felix.

His eyes narrow with unmistakable judgment, and then—because apparently this morning can actually get worse—he places one pristine white paw on the coffee tin and pushes.

The tin hits the floor with a crash that threatens to split my skull clean in two. Coffee grounds explode across the linoleum in a dark, aromatic cloud of shattered dreams.

Felix, satisfied with his work, smirks and admires his guilty white paw.

I stand frozen as my salvation spreads across the kitchen floor in a fine brown powder.

That damned cat is a demon in feline form.

My shoulders slump, but I refuse to let Felix win.

If the coffee won’t come to me, I’ll go to the coffee. Specifically, to the office, where Annie makes coffee strong enough to raise the dead. My assistant might be judgmental, but she’d never withhold coffee.

Felix blinks at me, slow and satisfied.

“Enjoy your victory. One of these days I’m getting a dog.”

Felix lifts his back leg and licks his unmentionables.

My threat is empty, and we both know it.

With a sigh, I turn away. If this is how my day begins, what other torments are in store?

MURDER IN MANHATTAN
Genre: Historical Mystery
Release: December 2025
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Inspired by one of the first real-life female columnists at the New Yorker, this enticing historical mystery follows Freddie Archer as she solves crimes while reporting on the glamorous world of the rich and famous in 1920s Manhattan.

This writer just found her next scoop . . . and it’s deadly.

New York, 1925 – Freddie Archer frequents speakeasies and wild parties with her friends Dorothy Parker and Tallulah Bankhead. And the best part is that it’s all in a day’s work. Freddie loves her job writing the nightlife column for Gotham Magazine.

But Freddie’s latest piece just won her a bit more attention than she bargained for—from the police. A man mentioned in her column has been murdered. And Freddie is asked to keep an eye out for his fashionable female dinner companion. She’s told in no uncertain terms to stay out of the case herself.

So naturally, Freddie throws herself into an investigation that takes her from the elegant stores that line Fifth Avenue to the tenements south of Houston Street. Now between sipping gin rickeys with Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald and casting Broadway shows with Groucho Marx, she’s dodging bullets and dating a potentially dangerous bootlegger.

Freddie wanted adventure and excitement. But will she survive it?

About the author
Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders, the Poppy Fields Adventures, and the Freddie Archer Mysteries.

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean–and she’s got an active imagination. Truth is–she’s an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dogs, and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.

Action, adventure, mystery, and humor are the things Julie loves when she’s reading. She loves them even more when she’s writing!