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    Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls, Volume 1 in The Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series
    Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls, Volume 1 in The Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series
    Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls, Volume 1 in The Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series
    Ebook117 pages2 hours

    Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls, Volume 1 in The Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series

    By Debra Hyde

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    About this ebook

    A dead body in a back alley means little to the rough streets of 1880s New York City—until Charlotte Olmes, woman detective, steps onto the scene. Crime-solving on behalf of her female clients, Olmes eschews decorum and ventures into places forbidden to the fairer sex, sleuthing after clues hidden, elusive, and often distasteful.

    When the exotic Miss Tam pleads with Charlotte to find the man to whom she's secretly married, Charlotte ventures into the dark and dangerous crannies of the city with her partner and passionate lover, Joanna Wilson, at her side. Soon, what appeared to be the random misfortune born of Chinatown's opium dens reveals itself as a vicious gang-related murder—and Olmes and Wilson find themselves wedged between the ethnic and political forces that collide where Chinatown borders the Bowery.

    Penned by Lambda Literary Award winner Debra Hyde, Of White Snakes and Misshapen Owls recasts the classic eccentric detective genius in ways never before seen. Passions both criminal and carnal come alive in vivid and exacting detail in what promises to become the hallmark of the Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRiverdale Avenue Books
    Release dateDec 26, 2013
    ISBN9781626010680
    Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls, Volume 1 in The Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series

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      Book preview

      Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls, Volume 1 in The Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series - Debra Hyde

      Copyright: Of White Snakes and Misshaped Owls

      Volume One of the Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series © 2013 by Debra Hyde

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

      For more information contact:

      Riverdale Avenue Books

      5676 Riverdale Avenue

      Riverdale, NY 10471.

      www.riverdaleavebooks.com

      Design by www.formatting4U.com

      Cover by Insatiable Fantasy Designs Inc.

      Digital ISBN: 978-1-62601-068-0

      To Laura Antoniou, a dear friend who never fails to inspire me. This one's for you, Laurie!

      What They are Saying about

      Of Whites Snakes and Misshaped Owls: Volume One of the Charlotte Olmes Mystery Series

      No, this is by no means a cozy crime mystery, but the detectives do enjoy a gracious cup of tea before going out on the mean streets of 1880s NYC where Chinatown meets Irish territory to solve a brutal murder. Detective Charlotte Olmes and her assistant/apprentice are great characters, clever and passionate in their pursuit of the facts of crimes, and even more passionate (and clever) in their interludes of lesbian sex. I love mysteries, I love well-researched historical fiction, and lesbian sex is one of my favorite flavors, so my only complaint is that this story is too short, and I look forward to more episodes.

      —Sacchi Green, editor Best Lesbian Erotica

      Charlotte is one kickin' heroine, both on the investigative trail and in her own home with her life partner Joanna. She's as modern as could be, and tolerates no nonsense. An exciting series debut.

      —Mallory Anne-Marie Forbes (Haws)

      Hyde’s quirky, brilliant, moody Charlotte Olmes could well hold her own against Doyle’s eccentric genius. She is an example of a type that still fascinates to this day—a tradition stretching from Hypatia of Alexandria to George Sand, Calamity Jane and Gertrude Stein—the strong, independent, freethinking woman, unafraid to break the rules, which are, after all, made by and for men. Particularly in the Victorian period, such women were looked upon with suspicion and outright condescension—perhaps masking a deep-seeded dread—their accomplishments all-too-often redacted from official record. It’s then something akin to a stroke of genius for Hyde to make Olmes’ partner, Joanna, the top in the bedchamber.

      —Terrance Aldon Shaw

      Debra Hyde weaves a story line along very familiar territory, mixing the classic case solving of Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Watson, while knee deep in Martin Scorsese territory: the politically corrupt and physically violent world of Lower East Side New York in the late 1800s. Along the way is some masterful writing, language true to the period, and some of the hottest lesbian love scenes since Nina Gershon had her way with Jennifer Tilly.

      —IJM, Amazon Reviewer

      Chapter One

      Early June 1800

      The Bowery

      Fists met flesh, thudding deep and without restraint. The victim staggered, his mouth gaping but unable to catch air. If not for an alley wall, he might've fallen but, cornered, neither could he escape. His assailants rushed him, fists flying. Bone cracked against brass knuckles, blood spilled and teeth flew, and the man slumped to the ground, barely conscious.

      Watching it all, hungry for the bare-knuckled feel of flesh against crushing fist, a young man flexed his hand, wanting it for himself. But he had to wait. He had made his plan and he was determined not to deviate from it.

      Barely winded, his companions lit into their downed quarry, stomping and kicking. Stout and bullish, they were all fight compared to their taller, wiry compatriot. They were coarse roughs to his cleaner, crisper appearance—soldiers to the mastermind. And when he told them to hold up, they stepped back, panting and finally having broken a sweat.

      One of them wiped spittle from his mouth. What now, boss?

      Bring him to, he said. Let him see who's done this to him.

      One of the bullies grabbed a bucket, dunked it into a rain barrel's stale water, and poured its content over the sprawled man. The man sputtered to consciousness upon inhaling, his body instinctively reacting to the sensation of drowning.

      Haul him up, boys.

      They brought the beaten wretch to his unsteady feet. Blood seeped from a shattered nose and a split lip. One eye had already swelled shut. He spat, then leveled a half-swollen eye at the dandy standing before him, moonlight bright enough to cast shadows aiding him. His one good eye widened in shocked recognition.

      You! he rasped, blood flying. Why? What you mean by this? He clutched his side. His words pained him in more ways than one.

      The young man removed his hat, a show of respect reduced to mockery. Because you wouldn't leave well enough alone. I told you to let me be.

      He tossed his hat aside and, in the same motion, flew at the poor man and made good on his violent desire. His upper cut took the man out. Finally, the first of two satisfactions was his.

      You know what to do, he told his fellow brutes. I'll meet you in ten minutes. He retrieved his hat, brushed it free of the alley's dirt, and set it right before stealing out of the alley.

      He wandered about the Bowery, making himself conspicuous among dollies and good fellows alike, checking his pocket watch only after downing a draught and kissing a gaiety girl. He slipped into the background, then slipped away completely, heading for Mott Street and his final satisfaction. He rendezvoused with his fellows in an alley there, finding one of them in mid-blow as the other was dragging their victim from a roughshod hand cart.

      What's this? he demanded. He'd told them to lay no further a hand on their captive.

      He was coming to, they claimed. We was knocking him out, nothing more.

      They let the man slump to the ground, his body hitting wet filth in a squalid-sounding squelch. Their mastermind went to the man and knelt there. A cruel smile snaked across his face as he reached into his coat and drew from it a long, slender weapon that gleamed in the moonlight.

      When he turned his victim face down in the squalor and aimed the sharp tip of the ice pick at the wasted man's neck, his companions gasped with horror. He pressed the pick home, pushing it through flesh and between vertebrates, twisting and wiggling it until the deed was done.

      His mortified fellows crossed themselves and called upon the saints to cleanse them of this man's sin. It was one thing to slip the knife into your enemy or to beat him to a pulp or to fire upon him with a gun, but to kill a man like a butcher? One of your own no less? This man, they decided, was Satan come among them.

      He rose gloating, exalted and jubilant. He'd removed the obstacle to his freedom and he'd done so in a way that no man would deny him his due. He'd have his place among the Whyo gang. And anyone who denies me will have to face me, he thought, gripping the ice pick in triumph.

      But he failed to see what fell from his pocket as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped clean his barbarous needle.

      Chapter Two

      Our Home, near Madison Square Park

      I was not surprised that I had

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