Murdered Sleep

A Dade Wyatt Mystery

"...a pleasure to read, smooth and well paced... a class historical mystery that provokes fresh insight about American heritage, as well as human honor. Worth the wait!"

—Beth Kanell, author, The Darkness Under the Water

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About Murdered Sleep

As Murdered Sleep opens in Teddy Roosevelt's Washington in spring 1906, Shakespearean actor Dade Wyatt's life is already complicated: the leading man has fallen ill and he has three days to step into the role of Macbeth. He's having an affair with a fellow actor, a married woman with a secret past she's desperate to conceal from him; an actors' fling is slipping dangerously close to true love.

Then Wyatt's old friend Warren Dodge, newly elected to Congress, enlists him to investigate the murder of fiery populist Congressman Robert Nielsen, found beaten to death after a very public insult to a senior conservative on the House floor. The accused, Richard Latham, is a man Wyatt has every reason to hate: his dead wife's father, who disowned her when she married Wyatt.

With the help of his friends Alexis Germain, a New Orleans homme de couleur, and Commander Macalester, a doughty Scot now running the Metropolitan Homicide Division, Wyatt must pursue the real killer through the corrupt and rapacious world of Gilded Age real estate development, the halls of Congress, and the parallel universe of the "Black Four Hundred," the Capital's cultured and idealistic black community of educators and social activists.

"Along with creating a cast of richly drawn characters and a nicely paced plot with satisfying twists, Harold's book provides fascinating insights into race relations at the beginning of the 20th century. The attention to detail in creating a portrait of Washington DC in 1906 is impressive and a delight to read."

—Kathryn Guare, author of the Conor McBride international mystery series