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The Black Bag of Dr. Wiltse, Murder on the Prairie (2021), book two in the Gangster Series

Study Guides: Coming soon!

WHY CONSIDER THIS NOVEL FOR YOUR BOOK CLUB?

(245 pages) Book #2 in the gangster series tells an earlier piece of the Iowa gangster story. The pioneer physician, Dr. Alexander Wiltse’s family established Hotel Wiltse, initially introduced in Gangster in Our Midst. In the mid-1950s, Dr. Wiltse and his family departed his beloved Canada to reestablish 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. Still, his fellow French Canadians called him Guérisseur, Healer. Perhaps the Canadian is also running from entanglements of the past.

The novel tells an earlier piece of ‘gangsterism’ in the Midwest. Largely, early pioneers were hearty, hard-working souls and people of good faith. For a few, horse thievery and land grabs became the currency by which they survived. 

Discussion topics of interest include:

• Pioneer physicians and the medicines and medical practices used to treat illness and disease.
• Physicians aiding lawmen to solve mysterious deaths.
• An immigrants’ story of enduring Indian massacres, mob hangings, prairie banditti, then the American Civil War–and sanctioned murder. 
• This period piece of northeast Iowa’s earliest history is particularly pertinent 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

Contact me for a 20% discount on books for your Book Club

Study Guides:

WHY CONSIDER THIS NOVEL FOR YOUR BOOK CLUB?
(220 pages) The historical novel tells the chilling story of an Italian-American gangster, Louie La Cava, who arrives in a small midwestern town in the 1920s, and soon announces he works for Chicago Kingpin Alphonse Capone. He remains off and on for the next sixty years. Locals must find a way to cope with having a mobster living in their midst.

This book is rife with comparisons of life in American society today—drugs, guns, gangsterism…and people of good faith.

Discussion topics of interest include:

• • A town marshal who finds himself dealing with dramatic social changes brought about by Prohibition, then the Great Depression.
  • Townspeople, many of German heritage, who are caught up in the biting stigma of a second world war instigated by Germany.
  • A love story between a farmer and his wife, Walter and Emma Bierkoff—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?

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