No Game for a Dame
Private eye Maggie Sullivan knows the streets of Depression-era Dayton, Ohio, as well as she knows an emery board. With a gin bottle in her desk, a .38 under her seat, and a great pair of legs she can hold her own against the toughest opponent.
Then a routine case makes her a murder suspect and the target of a crime boss who’s got friends at City Hall.
Moving through a landscape where people line up at soup kitchens, Maggie draws information from sources others overlook: The waitress at the dime store lunch counter where she has breakfast; a corner newsboy; a nightclub cigarette girl in the rooming house where she lives. She shifts to a war of wits when she wants something from her shutterbug pal on the evening paper or the new cop teamed with her late father’s partner.
Before Maggie finds all the answers she needs, she’s drugged and left in a ditch, has tea in the kitchen of a local cathouse and gambles her own life to save two others.
(75,000 words; available as ebook, print, and audiobook)
“Maggie Sullivan has plenty of moxie – and she needs every bit of it. She’s a private detective in pre-World War II Dayton, Ohio, and, as she’s been warned, that “ain’t no game for a dame.” Her latest case involves a local businessman who’s been worried about his nephew’s recent odd behavior. But there’s someone else in town – a very powerful someone else – who doesn’t like Maggie asking questions. As she follows her hunches into Dayton’s Irish bars, with her cronies down at the Daily News, or among the working girls she boards with, the threats increase in danger, and Maggie begins to realize her life may be on the line.
No Game For A Dame is a delightful, satisfying read for many reasons. One is the craft with which author M. Ruth Myers pulls you subtly and surely into the place and time. The novel has the ambiance of a classic 1930s mystery film, with every detail in place. Even a key point in the plot turns on a piece of technology that would have been brand new in 1937. Maggie’s razor-sharp wit and mastery of the the sarcastic riposte make for laugh out loud funny lines. Veteran mystery fans as well as new ones will appreciate the tight, fast-paced plot that will keep them guessing, with just a hint of romance to tease them. It’s my bet that we have not heard the last of Maggie Sullivan, and I’m looking forward to her next case..” K.M. Flanagan, Cincinnati, OH
“I loved this book. Sam Spade in a skirt! What a great read!!! If you like a well written mystery, you’ll love this one. It takes place in Dayton, Ohio after Prohibition but before WWII. Can’t wait for the next one in the series.” Susan J. Grassi, Oswego, KS
“Maggie Sullivan, a feisty PI, won my heart with this first novel in what author M. Ruth Myers promises will be a long string of adventures. I can’t wait for the next one!
I loved learning about life for a single working woman in the 1930’s, especially one with an unusual job. For those with mothers or grandmothers who lived during that time, welcome to the past as they lived it, where this female private detective was out ahead of everybody else.
It is so exciting to be in on the creation of a new series.” Lee Huntington, Yellow Springs, OH
