"Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon." - Ann Patchett
All About Me
Early experience as a staff greeting card writer introduced Roberta Tracy to witty people who shared the writer’s dream. Marriage, motherhood, and career intervened, but she maintained that creative desire. A degree in nonprofit management led her to work situations where newsletters, grant proposals, and business correspondence took precedence. Still, she wrote poetry, some of which won prizes and publication, and children’s books set in worldwide locations. Recently, she co-authored Come Dream With Me, a part travelogue, part hippie nostalgia work of creative nonfiction, detailing the adventures of colleague Inese Civkulis. No matter what writing projects unfold in the future, she'll never find enough words to thank family and friends for their inspiration and encouragement.
My HP Books
The last thing LAPD Detectives McManus and Tyson expect to find behind Pantages Theatre is a body rolled up in a blanket.
The last thing Margaret Morehouse, one of the city's first policewoman with arrest powers, expects to do is join the investigation. When a deadly explosion at the L. A. Times derails their efforts, Margaret finds herself at a crossroads and strikes out on her own, a path leading to delusion and self-discovery on a vaudeville stage. Her husband's nephew Leland further complicates the situation by sharing a ransom note and confiding his failure to report his wife's disappearance the Dominguez Air Meet.
A brief stint as a magician's assistant takes Margaret to Chicago, where she almost signs on as a zig zag girl, the term used for ladies performing in the "cutting-a-woman-in-two" illusion. Instead, Margaret returns to the tumultuous world of early twentieth century Los Angeles. Reunited with McManus and Tyson, she confronts prejudices and societal norms in efforts to identify a body, clear Leland's name, and topple the stranglehold one powerful, amoral person has over many lives. Their efforts lead to dead ends and misconceptions before truth comes to light. Love is rekindled and danger uncovered in unlikely places. Margaret goes from Zig Zag Girl to Zig Zag Woman, no longer cut in two but headed on a clearer path.
Book Excerpt
At long last, Margaret understood the enormous responsibility of motherhood. It was one thing to bring children into the world, quite another to raise them. She could take a day off and no one would think lesser of her.
Mary Ellen tucked the older children into bed while Margaret rocked Michael in the cradle until he fell asleep. Kissing the nape of his little neck, she tiptoed out of the nursery and left for home, carrying a vision of what might have been, hoping to come back for more.
The autumn air stiffened her resolve. Walking to Third and Hill Streets, her mind hopscotched across the mysteries she'd recently encountered.
The Pantages problem was rooted in depravity. Until they pierced the conspiracy in that tight vaudevillian world, the victim would remain faceless and the culprit free. By comparison, Leland’s dilemma was a mere misstep, no matter how baffling Yvette’s means of escape from a loveless marriage might seem.
Margaret's usual ride did not run past sundown. She headed west towards Third and Hill where two years earlier the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks had built a decorative arch to commemorate their convention.
The structure marked the lower access to the Los Angeles Incline Railway, better known as Angels Flight. Connected to a single cable, two small white carriages, named Sinai and Olivet after biblical mountains far higher but possibly not much steeper than the 315-foot Bunker Hill she needed to climb, counterbalanced each other. When one car reached the top of the hill, the other could be boarded down below.
Those who’d rather climb than ride could always take a flight of stairs. Margaret was in no such mood. Her late-night wanderings might well test Edmund’s patience to the limit. She boarded the Olivet and showed her badge to the surly conductor.
Worried the creak of hardwood floors would awaken Edmund and Cushman, she unlaced and removed her shoes when she reached the doorstep. From faraway came a distinct pop! Less than a second later, something buzzed overhead, bounced off the upper brass door hinge, ricocheted against the jamb, and clattered to the porch so loudly she barely heard sounds of feet and hooves running off into the night.
Peeling off a glove to feel around, Margaret half expected to find a dazed bird or bat. Her fingers came upon a metallic object, cylindrical and burning hot. She picked it up gingerly and went inside. Under the dim light of the lamp Cushman had left by the window, she saw it was a large leaden bullet.
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5.0 out of 5 stars - Zig Zag Woman hits all the right chords!
"Wow, what a wonderful historical mystery novel! Roberta Tracy's Zig Zag Woman hit all the right chords for me. First, it's an exciting, fun story, well-written, with numerous exciting twists and misdirections. And her historical research is impeccable and artfully utilized to make the characters and events pop out of the book. But what really did it for me were all the social justice themes she subtly wove into her narrative in a way that felt authentic and natural, without disrupting the flow of the story, or my immersion in it.
The setting is Los Angeles, 1910. The protagonist, Margaret Morehouse, is LAPD's second woman officer. Alice Stebbins Wells, the department's first female officer, had been hired earlier that same year. So, right off the bat we have a strong woman character, a trailblazer in a misogynistic world.
But make no mistake, LAPD was no bastion of progressive thinking. It was a department under fire from the public for its excessive use of force and brutality, and for sexual harassment of women in its jails. Captain Clarke believed the best way to avoid further accusations was to have women officers with "unassailable reputations" be the ones to question female suspects. So, he hired Wells and Morehouse to avoid further scandal.
Margaret Morehouse is no paper cutout of a first-wave feminist. In fact, she probably wouldn't even have described herself as one, though she does take inspiration from the work of Jane Addams.
Margaret is married to a minister and is fairly strait-laced and socially conservative by today's standards (e.g., concerned with "keeping up appearances"). Yet she is also independent and capable, with a desire for excitement and passion, which is lacking in her marriage. And she is also more than willing to bend social norms in order to achieve her goals. For example, in order to solve a murder case, she goes undercover as an actress at the famous Pantages Theatre, in spite of the dishonor it would create for a woman of her standing to dress as provocatively as she must for this job. Her husband, who is forward-thinking, gives his consent, but only if she has a male chaperone to keep an eye on her. This escort is their family servant, Cushman, whose fascinating backstory slowly unfolds over the course of the novel. Cushman's special talents, and his discretion, become indispensable to Margaret as she carries out her investigation, which take her from Los Angeles to Chicago, and to the boom town of San Bernardino, California, and even more so when she discovers another murder mystery within in her own family. All this is set against a backdrop of labor unrest, and the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building.
In reference to contemporary media coverage of the bombing, which was universally blamed on labor activists, Cushman says, "Twenty-one people lost their lives and mark my words, no matter who is responsible, it'll be union men who pay." This was precisely what happened repeatedly throughout that era, including IWW organizers Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings, falsely convicted for San Francisco's 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing; the anarchists falsely convicted for the 1886 Haymarket Bombing; and Western Federation of Miners organizer Big Bill Haywood, who was falsely accused of assassinating former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg in 1905. Overall, Roberta Tracy's Zig Zag Woman is a gem. A fantastic first novel. I can't wait to see what comes next!" - M. Dunn, Historium Press
