Subterfuge

The first in a series called Florida Detectives. Boston, 1882: Emma Winthrop leaves her abusive husband and runs away with little more than the clothes on her back and a dog-eared travel brochure advertising the delights of Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. Gilbert George, a Pinkerton agent hired by her husband, follows her. Emma befriends an ailing woman and agrees to accompany the woman’s two children to visit their grandparents in Florida. The grandparents die, leaving the children in her care. Emma begins working for an unscrupulous bank manager, who sees in her someone who is naive enough to fall for his plan to embezzle funds from the bank. Follow Emma as she struggles to care for the children and clear her name, all the while dogged by the Pinkerton agent who believes the husband’s lies about Emma having stolen from him.