Are The Russians Influencing the Election?
It’s January 30, 1936, and Hollywood star Ginger Rogers arrives in Washington for the annual President’s Birthday Ball, a fundraiser for the polio patients at Warm Springs, Georgia. When the security detail goes missing after the ball, Ginger joins the President’s secretary, Missy LeHand, to deposit more than $20,000 raised at the ball, but they are hijacked on the way to the bank. The robbers release them unharmed, but disappear with the dough. Who took the money? Was it a common criminal, or is someone trying to embarrass FDR as he faces re-election? Or could it be something more insidious, like a Russian plot to put a less effective leader in his place? A second mystery evolves around an embarrassing photo of FDR, dressed as a Roman Caesar, surrounded by his staff and family garbed as Vestal Virgins and centurions, that was taken as his private birthday party the same night. How on earth did Cissy Patterson, FDR’s sworn enemy and publisher of the largest circulation newspaper in Washington, get hold of this photo?
Second in the Series
Readers of “Shirley Temple Is Missing” will welcome back the practical and perceptive Missy LeHand, straight-arrow FBI agent Corey Wainwright, and even bad-girl Hollywood reporter Joan Roswell, who is in town to cover Ginger Rogers at the Birthday Ball. But Missy has a problem as she is further attracted to Corey: her long-distance boyfriend, Ambassador to Russia William C. Bullitt, is also at home on an extended visit. How does she juggle the men in her life? Fact and fiction mix in this intriguing and convoluted tale!
About The Authors
Kelly Durham and Kathryn Smith attended D.W. Daniel High School near Clemson, South Carolina together, but didn’t become friends until more than forty years later when Kathryn began editing some of Kelly’s novels. Together, they write the Missy LeHand Mystery series.
Kelly lives in Clemson with his wife, Yvonne. They are the parents of Mary Kate, Addison and Callie, and also provide for their dog, George Marshall. A graduate of Clemson University, Kelly served four years in the U.S. Army with assignments in Arizona and Germany before returning to Clemson and entering private business. Kelly is also the author of THE WAR WIDOW, BERLIN CALLING, WADE’S WAR, THE RELUCTANT COPILOT, THE MOVIE STAR AND ME, HOLLYWOOD STARLET, TEMPORARY ALLIANCE and UNFORESEEN COMPLICATIONS. Visit his website, www.kellydurham.com, or contact him at kelly@kellydurham.com.
Kathryn lives in Anderson, South Carolina with her husband, Leo. They are the parents of two grown children and the grandparents of a growing brood of little ones. A graduate of the University of Georgia, Kathryn worked as a daily newspaper reporter and editor before entering nonprofit management work in Anderson. She is the author of the only biography of Marguerite LeHand, THE GATEKEEPER: MISSY LEHAND, FDR, AND THE UNTOLD STORY OF THE PARTNERSHIP THAT DEFINED A PRESIDENCY (Touchstone, 2016) as well as GERTIE: THE FABULOUS LIFE OF GERTRUDE SANFORD LEGENDRE, HEIRESS, EXPLORER, SOCIALITE, SPY (Evening Post Books, 2019).
