The Body on the Bricks

Madness. Murder. Moral Justice. Lawrence, Kansas 1873. Investigative journalist Mary Fanning unearths buried sins, fiendish plots, and tortured lives behind three killings in one day.

A hatchet–a seamstress bludgeoned. An axe–a dead child. A shotgun–a lawyer executed. One day, three murders. Lawrence, Kansas, 1873, reels in shock. Kansas Daily Tribune crime reporter, Mary Fanning, chases the monstrous secrets and sins behind the cold, calculated killings––nothing about them is what it seems. Smart, tough, independent, she becomes trapped in webs of deception, vengeance, and religious fervor: a spiritualist who claims to resurrect the dead; the explosive revelations of a woman sentenced to an asylum; a bohemian goddess, half-naked, strutting the streets, reciting the poetry of Robert Burns.

In The Body on the Bricks, Leonard Krishtalka delivers a masterful sequel to The Body on the Bed, his acclaimed historical mystery in which journalist Fanning covers a sensational murder and trial, and roots out the diabolical plot––all amid the turbulent social upheaval of post-Civil War 1871 Kansas.

Now, says the Midwest Book Review, “Fanning returns in a superb Kansas setting” and faces a new, dangerous reckoning—professional, moral, and personal—as “madness descends on her career, life, and discoveries. Krishtalka weaves together facts and embellishes them with dramatic flair and high drama, an exquisite capturing of the times and daily life.” The result is “a deadly series of snarls that embroils the readers in a gripping saga, a vivid, exciting story that’s hard to predict—or put down.”

The Body on the Bricks is a riveting tale of murder, madness, and moral justice that cements Mary Fanning’s place among literature’s most intrepid investigators.

“A gripping saga … vivid, exciting, and satisfyingly hard to predict – or put down.”—Diane Donovan, Midwest Book Review