Devil's Chautauqua

It's August, 1925 and Owen Sound is locked in the grip of a relentless heat wave. The arrival of the Chautauqua--the annual travelling extravaganza of music, lectures, dance and even a psychic--is imminent. Detective DB Murphy receives a pre-dawn telephone call from his friend High Constable "Oddball" Scott, who is at the scene of a ritualistic killing in a downtown alley. With nothing better to do, DB takes the case, but soon finds his hands full as the Chautauqua's mysterious Count Luke Von Blankstein and his hulking henchman Adair, as well as a local ring of shoplifterss, put Owen Sound's number one detective through his paces.

The Devil's Chautauqua continues author Richard Thomas's exploration of the roaring twenties in Owen Sound, the "little Chicago" of the north. This is Thomas's sixth novel.