BELLADONNA, Bitter Conduct - Paperback

by L. M. Jorden (Author)

Dr. Josephine Plant Paradoxes - Based on a True Story

Follow the adventures of the trailblazing Dr. Josephine Reva, a first woman homeopathic doctor, when she moonlights as an amateur sleuth to solve "poison cure" murders.

BELLADONNA, Bitter Conduct An Italian soprano spouts strange verses and collapses on stage during the final act of Romeo and Juliet. Dr. Josephine Reva is in the audience and rushes to render aid. She suspects the diva was poisoned by Belladonna, a plant with deadly black berries, but her botanical expertise tells her there's something more. Meanwhile, Chief Detective John O'Malley uncovers fascist plots to oust President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Are the two events connected? Josephine decides to follow the opera troupe to spy. She heads up the gangway of the SS Rex, an Italian luxury ocean liner. With her are her opera singing patients. Also along is a handsome paramour - is romance on the horizon for Josephine, if she can survive the trip? Suspects abound: a surreal artist and shocking fashionista, a cardinal and priest carrying the relics of a saint, a mysterious Mussolini official, a Nazi doctor, a British lord, and the narcissistic opera divas and dons. Soon more murders bring the danger of an impending war closer. Josephine and her friends must hurry to solve these Belladonna crimes with deeper roots, before the ship docks in Fascist Italy and it's too late.