Betty Ahern

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Created by Liz Milliron

“I wish life was more like a movie.”
— opening lines of The Enemy We Don’t Know

Be careful what you wish for.

In The Enemy We Don’t Know (2020), billed as “A Homefront Mystery,” it’s November, 1942, and the world (even the United States) is at war, and Buffalo, NY teenage movie buff BETTY AHERN is all-in, doing her bit for the war effort.

She’s working at Bell Aircraft, building P-39s, while her fiancé, Tom Flannery,  is somewhere in North Africa (maybe) with the 1st Armored Division, and her older brother Sean is off in the Pacific.

But this blue collar gal’s got a dream–she wants to be detective, just like her hero, Sam Spade.  Betty’s smart, curious and inquisitive, she lights her Lucky Strikes with a Zippo, and shows considerable moxie for a good Catholic girl who goes to church regularly and still lives with her folks, kid brothers and a curfew.

And so she limits herself to moonlighting as an unlicensed private eye, working mostly pro bono and under-the-table cases for friends and family at night and on weekends, much to the disapproval of her bewildered but loving parents. Meanwhile, she’s taking a correspondence course in the hopes of scoring a long-dreamed for private investigator’s license.

Even before she makes it official (she only actually gets her detective’s license from “the great state of New York” in the fifth book in the series, The Secrets We Keep), Betty’s cases range from jewelry theft, missing fathers, and wandering boyfriends to sabotageurs, counterfeiters, and enemy agents, and murder frequently rears its ugly head. Even when the blessed day arrives, she still finds herself  working out of Teddy’s Diner until she can afford her own office. Fortunately, she’s got the ongoing support and friendship of Detective Sam McKinnon of the Buffalo police as a sort of mentor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Liz Milliron writes both the Laurel Highlands mystery series, featuring a Pennsylvania State Trooper and a Fayette County public defender in southwest Pennsylvania, and The Homefront Mysteries, featuring rookie P.I. Betty Ahern. She is a past president of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Sisters in Crime, as well as a member of International Thriller Writers and Pennwriters. Liz splits her time between Pittsburgh and Pennsyvania’s Laurel Highlands, where she lives with her husband and a very spoiled retired-racer greyhound.

UNDER OATH

  • “If Sam Spade and Rosie the Riveter had a love child, she’d be Betty Ahern.”
    -Annette Dashofy
  • “Milliron offers an authentic glimpse into the life of a woman on the cusp of coming into a new world of her own making as she fully embarks on becoming a private investigator. Intriguing, charming, and a delight….”
    — L.A. Chandlar
  • “Budding private investigator Betty Ahern takes on a new case that has her questioning her own belief system and prejudices in this charming, thought-provoking, and impeccably researched historical mystery…”
    — Edwin Hill on The Truth We Hide

NOVELS

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.

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