Murderer or independent woman? Murder at a construction site draws Ohio private investigator Maggie Sullivan into a case that makes cops mistrust her and friends doubt her. The suspect, Rachel Minsky, is Maggie's closest friend - and all signs point to Rachel's guilt. Rachel ignores the rules society imposes on women. That independence, in 1942, as well as her success in business, has made her enemies. Yet the dead man also had an unsavory secret or two, starting with his missing mistress. Who was the murderer's real target? And what is Rachel hiding from the only person who can save her? The city Maggie scours for clues to the real killer has been altered by America's recent entry into World War II. Shortages of men and material have created new motives for murder. Unsupervised children roam the streets at night while their mothers work in defense plants. Strangers outnumber familiar faces at Maggie's favorite pub. As the case and Maggie's relationship with policeman Mick Connelly heat up, Maggie finds herself caught in currents that threaten to drown her.

When Depression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan is invited to dine with a millionaire, she doesn’t expect the first course to be a gun in her face. It draws her into a gold-plated web of theft, revenge, double crosses and murder. A big-time swindle has made fools of some of the city’s wealthiest businessmen. The man behind it has vanished. When Maggie begins asking questions, he reappears – dead in the river. But she’s already learned too much. Someone’s out to silence her too. Armed with her .38 and a nip of gin, Maggie closes in on a killer as a mobster offers a hint, a cop unsettles her with his chemistry, and a woman with deadly potential plays a game by her own rules.About the AuthorM. Ruth Myers (who has also written as Mary Ruth Myers) is the author of novels that have been translated into several languages, optioned for television and condensed in Good Housekeeping. NO GAME FOR A DAME launched her Maggie Sullivan mystery series featuring a Depression era private eye in Dayton, Ohio. Myers graduated from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and worked as a reporter and feature writer on city dailies in Michigan and Ohio. She also has taught novel writing at writers conferences across the country. A native of Missouri, she spent part of her growing-up years in Wyoming. She and her husband are long-time Ohio residents with one grown daughter. When not writing or reading, Myers plays Irish traditional music on a button accordion and an Anglo concertina. Dark secrets are that she does Word Jumbles backwards and is rumored to have a serious dependency on blue corn tortilla chips. Website: http://www.mruthmyers.com Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/M.RuthMyers.author Twitter: @Mruthmyers

As WWII rages in the Pacific, relatives of a Japanese-American suspected of starting a fatal fire hire Ohio private investigator Maggie Sullivan to uncover the truth. Did he do it? Is he alive or dead? The police claim not to know what became of him, and there are hints of War Department involvement.Tosh Hashimoto and his family are among some 150 Japanese-Americans brought to Dayton by a church coalition that found jobs and housing for them throughout the community. The more Maggie learns about the night of the fire, the more she believes Tosh is being framed.Grieving the recent loss of a close childhood friend killed in battle, Maggie wrestles inner conflict over taking the case. A harrowing attack in an alley, the murder of a witness, and a racist warning gouged into her office filing cabinet fuel her resolve to push ahead.Amid rationing, shortages, extra beds for noisy newcomers wedged into corners of her once-quiet rooming house, and an unexpected change in her personal life, Maggie scrambles to determine the identity of a killer who is more than willing to kill again. 

When Depression-era private eye Maggie Sullivan is invited to dine with a millionaire, she doesn’t expect the first course to be a gun in her face.  It draws her into a gold-plated web of theft, revenge, double crosses and murder. A big-time swindle has made fools of some of the city’s wealthiest businessmen.  The man  behind it has vanished.  When Maggie begins asking questions, he reappears – dead in the river. But she’s already learned too much.  Someone’s out to silence her too. Armed with her .38 and a nip of gin, Maggie closes in on a killer as a mobster offers a hint, a cop unsettles her with his chemistry, and a woman with deadly potential plays a game by her own rules.

The woman with work-roughened hands begs 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan to find her kid sister, the sister she's raised since the girl was a toddler. But two days later Maggie's client is dead. Everyone, cops included, brushes it off as suicide born of despair. Everyone except Maggie. With her Smith & Wesson and a nip of gin, the flinty detective sets out to uncover the fate of the missing girl. Her hunt leads her to a secretarial agency whose owner likes to paw his employees, and to a rich man's mansion where she encounters depravity beyond her darkest imaginings. This SHORT STORY, with traces of both hard-boiled and cozy, features characters from the author's full-length Maggie Sullivan mysteries.

As WWII rages in the Pacific, relatives of a Japanese-American suspected of starting a fatal fire hire Ohio private investigator Maggie Sullivan to uncover the truth. Did he do it? Is he alive or dead? The police claim not to know what became of him, and there are hints of War Department involvement.Tosh Hashimoto and his family are among some 150 Japanese-Americans brought to Dayton by a church coalition that found jobs and housing for them throughout the community. The more Maggie learns about the night of the fire, the more she believes Tosh is being framed.Grieving the recent loss of a close childhood friend killed in battle, Maggie wrestles inner conflict over taking the case. A harrowing attack in an alley, the murder of a witness, and a racist warning gouged into her office filing cabinet fuel her resolve to push ahead.Amid rationing, shortages, extra beds for noisy newcomers wedged into corners of her once-quiet rooming house, and an unexpected...

At the end of Dayton's first WWII blackout drill, a murder victim is found with private investigator Maggie Sullivan's name and address  in his pocket. Hours earlier he sat in her office asking for help – and using a different identity.With the war draining men from all walks of life, a homicide detective long dismissive of Maggie's skills reaches out to form an eggshell-fragile alliance. Warily they work in tandem to find the person behind two vastly different deaths: An ex-con killed neatly outside a factory and a young woman left in a blood-soaked apartment.Suspects abound. Maggie's client may have links to the killer. A bitter ex-con had plenty of reason to want the man who betrayed him dead. And a sleazy pulp crime writer may be after more than a story.Maggie works frantically to unmask the murderer before he kills again. But she must also bury an old friend and watch the man who once swore to love her forever turn elsewhere. Alone, she...

The brutal hit-skip death of a young woman is being written off as an accident until 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan finds signs pointing to murder. Charlotte Littlefield, a girl with "a past" was about to marry into one of Dayton, Ohio's, most prominent families and was staying with them to get better acquainted and smooth her rough edges. Did someone in the household object to her upcoming union? A frightened, incoherent phone call made moments before she fled the mansion and met her death suggests another possibility: Charlotte had seen — or heard — something she shouldn't have. Maggie spends frustrating hours in a mansion full of suspects. One wing houses a laboratory where the head of the family and his staff work on something hush-hush which the War Department needs as the war in Europe nears its end. Upstairs, his once-vibrant wife sits in her room a near invalid in the aftermath of polio. Their three grown children are a tangle of...

(This short story features characters from the author's Maggie Sullivan mysteries series.)Depression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan knows how to be tough when she needs to and polish her nails when she doesn't. A job offer from a blonde at a dime store lunch counter lures her to a still-warm corpse in an alley. His gold watch and cufflinks are still on him, but not his shoes and socks.A night of grilling by homicide cops does nothing to improve Maggie's mood, which deteriorates further when they laugh off a lead she gives them and imply she solves cases by batting her eyes instead of using her brains.Aided by a ragtag newsboy, Maggie baits a trap for the killer. He shows up with a knife. But Maggie wields a .38 as expertly as she does an emery board — and she doesn't back down for thugs or authorities when she's after answers.

Days before the Pearl Harbor attack plunges the U.S. into World War II, private eye Maggie Sullivan is hired to find a missing engineer in Dayton, Ohio.  Has Gil Tremain been kidnaped, or has he turned traitor — to his employer and maybe his country?As Maggie pieces together his last movements, she finds there are secrets the man’s ex-wife and his employers don’t want uncovered.   Maggie herself is attacked and an innocent witness is murdered.    The ruthlessness of her opponent — or opponents — becomes even clearer when there’s an attempt to abduct Tremain’s young daughter.    Still more chilling, Maggie’s investigation suddenly attracts the attention of a local crime kingpin.The attack on Pearl Harbor presses every cop in the city into service protecting manufacturing and research facilities.   Stunned by the knowledge their nation will soon be at war, even fearful the mainland itself will be bombed, people cling to family and friends.  Schedules and routines shatter.  Amid the disruption, alone and aware she can’t count on help from the police, Maggie races to save a man who has now become a liability to his captors.Maximum Moxie, fifth book in the author’s popular Maggie Sullivan mysteries series, gives readers fast-paced twists and turns along with a rare and vividly painted closeup view of a watershed event in 20th century American history.

With World War II rationing making new tires unavailable, 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan needs a retread tire to keep her DeSoto rolling through city streets, not a confrontation with two killers. Unfortunately for the scrappy Ohio detective, one leads to the other. It starts with a tall man in need of her help but quickly leads to a redhead claiming to be a clergyman’s daughter, puzzling hanky panky with a window in a second story service garage, and skeptical cops. Maybe, just possibly, someone’s after loot worth enough to risk spilling blood. Tracking down thugs and facing them alone, in the dark, is all in a day’s work for Maggie. The dry-humored female protagonist would rather be using her emery board, but as those on the wrong side of the law discover, she doesn’t mind using her Smith & Wesson. This SHORT STORY features characters from the full length novels in the author’s traditional mystery series set in 1940s America. It follows Maggie through cases in the years 1938-1946 and the city of Dayton, Ohio, from the end of the Great Depression into and through World War II. Readers who enjoy a 20th century historical mystery won’t go wrong here.

The Whiskey Tideby M. Ruth Myers At the height of Prohibition three sisters in a genteel Massachusetts family turn rumrunners to save their family. Desperate to provide for their newly widowed mother and little brother, they use the family’s pleasure schooner to smuggle whiskey from Canada.Kate, the bookworm, hatches the plan, sacrificing her last year at Wellesley to make every grueling and dangerous trip. Rosalie risks her engagement to a clergyman to help on the home front, and tends Kate’s gunshot wound from rum-pirates. Aggie, a dazzling flapper hungry for adventure, uses the undertaking to become involved with a man she doesn’t realize is a vicious killer.Kate’s courage in the face of storms, crooks on both sides of the law, and the treacherous tides of the Bay of Fundy change her view of the world. It also changes the lives of those around her. The Portuguese-Irish fisherman she hires to captain Pa’s Folly earns money enough to provide previously unimagined options for his poor but close-knit family, but bears the secret burden of falling in love with Kate. A wealthy old woman dying of loneliness in her clifftop mansion finds reasons to live. Even Kate’s cousin, shattered in body and spirit by his service in The Great War, is caught in the ripples.THE WHISKEY TIDE is a sweeping saga of family ties that bind and chafe and sometimes fray, and of new horizons glimpsed in the dark of the moon.

The brutal hit-skip death of a young woman is written off as an accident until 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan finds signs pointing to murder. Charlotte Littlefield, a girl with “a past” was about to marry into one of Dayton, Ohio’s, most prominent families and was staying with her future in-laws to get better acquainted and smooth her rough edges. Did someone in the household object to her upcoming union? A frightened, incoherent phone call made moments before she fled to her death suggests another possibility: Charlotte had seen — or heard — something she shouldn’t have. Maggie picks her way through a mansion filled with suspects. One wing houses a laboratory where the head of the family and his staff work on a hush-hush project which the War Department eagerly awaits as the war in Europe nears its end. Upstairs, his once-vibrant wife languishes in the aftermath of polio. Their three grown children are a tangle of resentments, jealousy and anger. A second murder raises the specter of someone targeting the family, or one of its members. Undeterred by a black eye from an attack, Maggie tracks down clues in high-class brothels, burlesque theaters, bars and ivy trellises. Before she can use her last bit of proof, she finds herself in a harrowing cat-and-mouse chase with a killer through surroundings where a misstep will snuff out dozens of lives.

A .38, a nip of gin and sensational legs get Depression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan out of most scrapes – until a stranger threatens to bust her nose, she’s hauled in on suspicion of his murder and she finds herself in the cross-hairs of a sadistic crime boss.Matching wits against dangerous men, with bits of information from a dime store waitress, a ragged newsboy and the girls at her rooming house, Maggie follows a path that leaves her drugged, in her DeSoto in a ditch.A gunman puts a bullet through Maggie’s hat. Her shutterbug pal on the evening paper warns her off. A new cop whose presence unsettles her thinks she’s crooked. Before she finds all the answers she needs, she faces a half-crazed man with a gun, and a far more lethal point-blank killer.If you like Robert B. Parker's hard boiled Spencer series and strong women sleuths, don't miss this one-of-a-kind Ohio detective from a time in United States history when dames wore hats -- but seldom a Smith & Wesson.

When a man offers 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan twice her usual fee to look into a "possible" jewelry theft from his hotel safe, she’s skeptical — until a maid’s body tumbles out of a trash can and a jeweler known for high quality fakes is murdered.Does a hotel guest who vanished without a trace hold a piece of the puzzle?  Or does it have to do with the Polish count and his family fleeing the start of WW2 in Europe?  Could the cops be right that it’s all a trick devised by her client?More at ease in Dayton, Ohio’s, streets and alleyways than in the posh Hotel Canterbury, and chafing under the need to hide her true occupation, Maggie threads her way through an unfamiliar array of suspects: Celluloid luminaries in town for a hush-hush project; an international Lothario whose shady local past she unearths; the count’s embittered valet.Meanwhile, preparations for a visit by FDR preoccupy the city’s police.  The Irish cop who long has wooed Maggie suddenly departs for Chicago.  Alone and bruised, Maggie faces adversaries whose motives stun her... and a killer who will stop at nothing.A dash of humor leavens this historical mystery series with its early 20th century hard-boiled atmosphere and a flinty detective who wields her Smith & Wesson as skillfully as her emery board.  Previous Maggie Sullivan mysteries are No Game for a Dame, Tough Cookie, Don’t Dare a Dame, and two short stories.

Murderer or independent woman?Murder at a construction site draws Ohio private investigator Maggie Sullivan into a case that makes cops mistrust her and friends doubt her. The suspect, Rachel Minsky, is Maggie’s closest friend – and all signs point to Rachel’s guilt. Rachel ignores the rules society imposes on women.  That independence, in 1942, as well as her success in business, has made her enemies.  Yet the dead man also had an unsavory secret or two, starting with his missing mistress.  Who was the murderer’s real target?  And what is Rachel hiding from the only person who can save her? The city Maggie scours for clues to the real killer has been altered by America’s recent entry into World War II.  Shortages of men and material have created new motives for murder.  Unsupervised children roam the streets at night while their mothers work in defense plants....

Channing Stuart, a beautiful, brilliant young scientist and amateur magician, is recruited by the U.S. State Department to use her unique magic skills to retrieve a piece of passport film from a master terrorist. With veteran agent Bill Ellery, Channing plays a lethal game of cat and mouse against a cold-blooded killer and must perform her sleight of hand amidst a blaze of bullets.

A .38, a nip of gin and sensational legs get Depression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan out of most scrapes – until a stranger threatens to bust her nose, she’s hauled in on suspicion of his murder and she finds herself in the cross-hairs of a crime boss with connections at City Hall. Moving through streets 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 ragged newsboy; the other career girls at her rooming house. Her digging gets her chloroformed and left in a ditch behind the wheel of her DeSoto. She makes her way to an upscale bordello and gets tea – and information – from the madam herself. A gunman puts a bullet through Maggie’s hat. Her shutterbug pal on the evening paper warns her off. A new cop whose presence unsettles her thinks she’s crooked. Before she finds all the answers she needs, she faces a half-crazed man with a gun, and a far more lethal point-blank killer. If you like Robert B. Parker's hard boiled Spencer series and strong women sleuths, don't miss this one-of-a-kind detective from a time in United States history when dames wore hats -- but seldom a Smith & Wesson.About the AuthorM. Ruth Myers is a former reporter and feature writer for daily papers including The Journal Herald in Dayton. Most of her nine previous novels have been published in foreign translations as well as in English. Ruth's time at the typewriter allows her husband to climb on the roof with untied shoelaces and the cat to sprawl on the kitchen table without reprimand.

Days before the Pearl Harbor attack plunges the U.S. into World War II, private eye Maggie Sullivan is hired to find a missing engineer in Dayton, Ohio.  Has Gil Tremain been kidnaped, or has he turned traitor — to his employer and maybe his country?As Maggie pieces together his last movements, she finds there are secrets the man’s ex-wife and his employers don’t want uncovered.   Maggie herself is attacked and an innocent witness is murdered.    The ruthlessness of her opponent — or opponents — becomes even clearer when there’s an attempt to abduct Tremain’s young daughter.    Still more chilling, Maggie’s investigation suddenly attracts the attention of a local crime kingpin.The attack on Pearl Harbor presses every cop in the city into service protecting manufacturing and research facilities.   Stunned by the knowledge their nation will soon be at war, even fearful the mainland...

2014 SHAMUS AWARD WINNERDepression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan risks losing her P.I. license — and her life — when two spinsters hire her to learn the fate of their father, who vanished twenty-six years earlier. She’s barely started when her main suspect commits suicide and Maggie is summoned before the powerful chief of police. A stroke of his pen will revoke her license, and he warns her he’s getting complaints about her from City Hall. With her livelihood on the line, fortified by a nip of gin and her .38, the intrepid detective follows a trail all but obliterated by time and the catastrophic Dayton flood of 1913 in which the vanished man went missing. It leads her to a local politician with bigger ambitions — and possibly secrets to hide. It takes her into dime stores, cheap hotels, and a violent ambush by men wearing brass knuckles. As a cop wages a wily campaign to win her affections, and a rag-tag newsboy pushes to become her assistant, crimes of the past explode in the present. Maggie fights to survive foes who must destroy her to destroy each other. Fans of strong women sleuths and historical atmosphere have dubbed this tough little private investigator “Sam Spade in a skirt.”Review"Myers' prose is alive with gritty dialog, unusual characters" -- BaconsMysteries.com"A formidable leading character and a page-turning plot" --MaxEverhart30.blogspot"...intrigue, mystery, misdirection, political warfare, and lipstick" --Goodreads** Praise for TOUGH COOKIE"all the elements you look for in a hard-boiled mystery" -- bestselling author M. Louisa Locke

At the end of Dayton's first WWII blackout drill, a murder victim is found with private investigator Maggie Sullivan's name and address  in his pocket. Hours earlier he sat in her office asking for help – and using a different identity.With the war draining men from all walks of life, a homicide detective long dismissive of Maggie's skills reaches out to form an eggshell-fragile alliance. Warily they work in tandem to find the person behind two vastly different deaths: An ex-con killed neatly outside a factory and a young woman left in a blood-soaked apartment.Suspects abound. Maggie's client may have links to the killer. A bitter ex-con had plenty of reason to want the man who betrayed him dead. And a sleazy pulp crime writer may be after more than a story.Maggie works frantically to unmask the murderer before he kills again. But she must also bury an old friend and watch the man who once swore to love her forever turn elsewhere. Alone, she pushes doggedly on through a landscape darkened by homefront precautions and human evil. 

When a man offers 1940s private investigator Maggie Sullivan twice her usual fee to look into a "possible" jewelry theft from his hotel safe, she’s skeptical — until a maid’s body tumbles out of a trash can and a jeweler known for high quality fakes is murdered.Does a hotel guest who vanished without a trace hold a piece of the puzzle?  Or does it have to do with the Polish count and his family fleeing the start of WW2 in Europe?  Could the cops be right that it’s all a trick devised by her client?More at ease in Dayton, Ohio’s, streets and alleyways than in the posh Hotel Canterbury, and chafing under the need to hide her true occupation, Maggie threads her way through an unfamiliar array of suspects: Celluloid luminaries in town for a hush-hush project; an international Lothario whose shady local past she unearths; the count’s embittered valet.Meanwhile, preparations for a visit by FDR preoccupy the...

This mystery **short story** features characters from the author's novels featuring depression-era private investigator Maggie Sullivan.A blonde in an expensive hat approaches Maggie at a dime store lunch counter, offering a staggering amount of money if the detective will meet a man who wants to hire her. Suspecting something amiss, Maggie refuses. But her empty bank account, plus curiosity, prompt her to turn up at the time and place appointed — only to encounter a body that's still warm.Irked when the detectives questioning her only snicker at the leads she suggests, and even more so by their insinuation that she solves cases by batting her eyes instead of using her brains, Maggie baits a trap for the killer.He shows up at Maggie's office ready to use a knife to get information he wants. But the gritty little private eye handles a .38 as competently as she does an emery board. The killer isn't the only one involved in a lucrative crime... and Maggie wants the satisfaction of...