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The Black Bag of Dr. Wiltse, Murder on the Prairie (2021), book two in the Gangster Series
Study Guide: Coming!
WHY CONSIDER THE BLACK BAG OF DR. WILTSE FOR YOUR BOOK CLUB?
(245 pages) Book #2 in the Gangster Series tells the backstory of Dr. Alexander Wiltse, introduced in Gangster in Our Midst. Dr. Wiltse and his family departed their beloved Canada in the mid-1850s to establish roots in the new state of Iowa. Only his wife Phebe knows of his attraction to murder investigations—his well-oiled black canvas bag simply allows him into places where others may not go. Perhaps the Canadian is also running from entanglements of the past.
Discussion topics:
- Canadian and European immigration to America (1850s).
- Pioneer physicians, medicines, and medical practices; physicians aiding lawmen in solving mysterious deaths.
- Indian massacres, mob hangings, prairie banditti…then, the American Civil War—and sanctioned murder.
- Snapshot of Northeast Iowa’s earliest history (as Iowa celebrates 175 years of statehood, 2021).
Gangster in Our Midst: Bookkeeper, lieutenant and sometimes hitman for Al Capone (2017), book one in the Gangster Series
Study Guides:
WHY CONSIDER GANGSTER IN OUR MIDST FOR YOUR BOOK CLUB?
(221 pages) Book #1 in the Gangster Series tells the chilling story of an Italian-American mobster, Louie La Cava, who arrives in the small midwestern town of “Oxbow” in the 1920s, and soon proclaims he works for Chicago Kingpin Alphonse Capone. He resides in the town off and on for the next sixty years.
Discussion topics:
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- Prohibition / Al Capone / Booze-running
- Social changes brought about by Prohibition. The Great Depression.
- Anti-German sentiment during WW II.
- A love story between a farmer and his wife—a Catholic and a Lutheran—during a time when Catholics and Protestants were at war, too.
- One common man’s ardent search to find an answer to the universal question: How does a just, loving God appropriate forgiveness for the most heinous and calamitous sins?
© 2017 Betty Brandt Passick. All rights reserved.