DD McGil delves into the mystery of what would happen if Ernest Hemingway's lost manuscripts were found.

Gilbert Madsen’s exciting new novel, Hunting For Hemingway, the second in the DD

McGil Literati Mystery series, (Midnight Ink, Fall, 2010), poses the question

‘what would happen if Ernest Hemingway’s long lost manuscripts were found?’  In

1922, when Hemingway’s wife traveled from Paris to meet him in Switzerland, a

valise containing all of Hemingway’s earliest unpublished writings was stolen

from her compartment at the train station. These manuscripts, missing nearly 90

years, would now have incalculable literary and monetary

value.

Lead character DD McGil, a thirty-something English

professor turned freelance insurance investigator, is thrust into the middle of

a complex dilemma when Professor David Barnes, an old flame, shows up in

Hemingway’s hometown claiming he has found the lost Hemingway manuscripts and is

going to auction them off. Her client, American Insurance, has perhaps unwisely

insured these manuscripts. Their CEO, Mitch King, hires DD to help authenticate

them because she knew David Barnes at one time, she has formal training in

literature, and most importantly, he is trying to get DD back into bed. When

David is found dead and DD is found at the scene of the crime, she becomes the

prime suspect and must protect herself. Who killed David Barnes? Was it the

insurance company, his university peers, or was it all just a hoax? And where

are the lost manuscripts?  Are they real or are they

fake?

Employing her usual unconventional methods, DD tries to

save herself from jail time, find the missing manuscripts for her client,

American Insurance, and track down a murderer. As DD works her way through a

maze of academic in-fighting, more murders ensue, and everyone from the

Hemingway Trust to the City College scrambles to find the Hemingway

manuscripts.

In

the midst of the mayhem DD, helped by her well-known antiquarian friend Tom

Joyce, tries to stay alive as she seeks to recover the valuable Hemingway

documents, if genuine, or to prove they’re fakes.  But someone has targeted her,

and things come to a head in a thrilling climax at Graue Mill, an historic grist

mill, at one time a stop on the Underground Railway.

The DD McGil Literati Mystery series is the innovation

of author Diane Gilbert Madsen.  A lover of mystery classics since her youth,

each book in the Literati Mystery series is inspired by the lives and works of

some of literature’s greatest writers.  The series is set in Chicago, Illinois,

and gives readers an intriguing and fun blend of mystery and history. In the

first book, “A Cadger’s Curse” DD McGil must authenticate a rare Robert Burns

treasure that her eccentric Aunt Elizabeth has come upon.  Diane is currently

writing the third book in the series, “The Conan Doyle Notes” in which a cryptic

note is found in a very rare book collection that may well change the course of

literary history.

About the author:

Diane Gilbert Madsen grew up enjoying Sherlock Holmes,

Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and John Dickson Carr. Born and raised in

Chicago, Diane attended the University of Chicago and received an MA in 17th

century literature from Roosevelt University. A political who’s who, Diane has

worked in Illinois government positions from deputy village clerk of Hemingway’s

hometown to the prestigious position of Director of Economic Development for the

State of Illinois, running the Department of Tourism and the Illinois Film

Office among others.  She has been cited in both the World Who’s Who of Women

and Who’s Who in Finance and Industry.  She and her husband currently share

their home with their two Japanese Chin dogs, Sugar and Spice, on the Cape Haze

Peninsula in Southwest Florida. For more information, check out her website: 

www.DianeGilbertMadsen.com

or her book video on YouTube: http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=hb3v3DfyXjg