Not Today

 Not Today, David E Feldman, EFace Media, 2021

Beach City is a beautiful town on the East Coast that has quite a checkered history. Sometime in the past, the police commissioner murdered the mayor.

Dora Ellison is happy to be a sanitation engineer (garbage collector) until her roommate, police Lt. "Franny" Hart is killed under mysterious circumstances. Dora starts getting anonymous phone calls asking her to investigate "a murder that wasn't a murder."

Dora finds a wide streak of corruption in Beach City. If a person goes along with the status quo, everything is fine. If a person complains, for instance, about illegal wastewater dumping, they are suddenly arrested in trumped-up charges, or their business is suddenly shut down by the Health Department. Who is behind the corruption? Is it the mayor, or his chief of staff? Does Dora find out the truth?

This is a gem of a story, that is first in a series. It has a strong female character who is not the usual ex-cop trying to make it as a private investigator. It's a present-day tale with a unique reason for the corruption, and is very much recommended.