Locked Rock Hatchet Murders — Fay Risner

Locked Rock, Iowa is lively again with Gracie Evans and her friends antics. Enjoy this story about Moser Mansion Rest Home for women residents when they attempt to make conditions better for women in 1905. What do you know! Gracie Evans, Moser Mansion resident, has turned into a women's activist which is going to get her in plenty of trouble. Locked Rock's newspaper is full of news from back east and the women in town read all about it. Suffragettes are burning their corsets to draw attention to the fact they want the same right to vote as the men which due to their efforts gave women the right to vote in August, 1920. Women are trying to bring on prohibition with the help of Carrie A. Nation, Temperance Movement leader, by smashing saloons with hatchets. Gracie enlists the women's bible study group to organize a Temperance march. She means well, but before she knows it, she's turned the men in town against the women. The march gets Gracie and two others arrested. Her community service punishment as the town's telephone operator puts her in the hot seat right where the men in town want her so they can threaten her. However, someone does more than threaten the town's Temperance leader Ida Frank. A killer hacks Ida and her family to death with the Moser Mansion hatchet. Rafe Johnson's blood hounds trail a scent to Moser Mansion. All of Locked Rock's citizens are on edge and looking for someone to blame the murders on. Gracie Evans is the men's prime suspect.