To Slip the Bonds of Earth
A Riveting Mystery Based on a True History
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
The Agatha Award-winning mystery inspired by the Wright Brothers’ real-life sister!
While not as famous as her older siblings Wilbur and Orville, the celebrated inventors of flight, Katharine Wright is equally inventive – especially when it comes to solving crimes – in this radiant historical mystery by USA Today bestselling author Amanda Flower.
December 1903: While Wilbur and Orville Wright’s flying machine is quite literally taking off in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina with its historic fifty-seven second flight, their sister Katharine is back home in Dayton, Ohio, running the bicycle shop, teaching Latin, and looking after the family. A Latin teacher and suffragette, Katharine is fiercely independent, intellectual, and the only Wright sibling to finish college. But at twenty-nine, she’s frustrated by the gender inequality in academia and is looking for a new challenge. She never suspects it will be sleuthing…
Returning home to Dayton, Wilbur and Orville accept an invitation to a friend’s party. Nervous about leaving their as-yet-unpatented flyer plans unattended, Wilbur decides to bring them to the festivities . . . where they are stolen right out from under his nose. As always, it’s Katharine’s job to problem solve—and in this case, crime-solve.
As she sets out to uncover the thief among their circle of friends, Katharine soon gets more than she bargained for: She finds her number one suspect dead with a letter opener lodged in his chest. It seems the patent is the least of her brothers’ worries. They have a far more earthbound concern—prison. Now Katharine will have to keep her feet on the ground and put all her skills to work to make sure Wilbur and Orville are free to fly another day.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Flower (the Emily Dickinson mysteries) transforms Katharine Wright, sister of flight pioneers Orville and Wilbur, into an intrepid gumshoe in this splendid series launch. It's 1903, and while Katharine's brothers prepare for their inaugural flight in North Carolina, she keeps the home fires burning in Dayton, Ohio, by caring for their father, running the family bike shop, and working part-time as a teacher. After Orville and Wilbur return home, having flown their Wright Flyer for a historic 57 seconds, the three siblings attend a party hosted by the family of one of Katherine's students. There, someone swipes Orville and Wilbur's flying plans; when Katharine tracks down her chief suspect, she finds him stabbed to death with one of Orville's screwdrivers. Orville immediately falls under suspicion for the grisly murder, and Katharine sets out to clear his name, betting on people to underestimate her intellect as she ferrets out the truth. As always, Flower's thorough historical research enables her to bring contemporary readers into a bygone era, and she has the mechanics of a satisfying mystery down pat. After this stirring maiden voyage, readers will be eager to see where the series goes next.
