When a factory girl crashes through a guardrail and accidentally drowns in the Chicago River, rookie journalist Freddie Simpson is convinced there's a sinister explanation for the incident. Nobody believes him, of course, so he decides to launch a solo investigation. The plot thickens once Freddie's prime suspect is also implicated in the poisoning of his friend Evangeline's neighbor.
For the two amateur sleuths, a random drowning becomes intertwined with labor riots, a national railroad strike, a medium who speaks to the dead, a blackmailer, and a murderer intent on covering his tracks by any means necessary. In SHROUDED IN THOUGHT, a killer learns he can outrun everything except the ghosts of his own past.
Nancy Wikarski is a fugitive from academia. After earning her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, she worked in corporate America for two decades before becoming a historical mystery author. Her books highlight unknown aspects of women’s history and contain elements of magical realism. In her Arkana series, she foregrounds the latest archaeological discoveries about prepatriarchal cultures around the planet and weaves these facts into fictional artifact hunts. Her Gilded Age Chicago books depict the real issues of first-wave feminism while following the fictional adventures of two amateur sleuths. Both her series have been award-nominated and have ranked on Amazon’s bestseller lists.
The author is a member of ALLi, Mystery Writers of America, the Society of Midland Authors, and has served as vice president of Sisters in Crime-Twin Cities and on the programming board of the Chicago chapter. Her short stories have appeared in Futures Magazine and DIME Anthology, while her book reviews and essays have been featured in Murder: Past Tense, Deadly Pleasures, and Mystery Readers Journal.