Death in Lacquer Red — Jeanne M. Dams

The year is 1900 and Hilda Johansson is a young Swedish woman working in the South Bend, Indiana, home of the Studebaker family. She faces the typical problems of an immigrant and the demands of a job that is both exhausting and exhilarating. Her struggle to be a good servant is compounded when she discovers, on the Studebaker estate, the body of a woman just returned from missionary work in China. Everyone has a theory. Everyone wants Hilda to stay out of things that don't concern her. But is it possible that she's the only one who can see what the others refuse to even acknowledge? The first in a series that is nothing less than UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS meets MURDER SHE WROTE.

"Dams brilliantly crafts a mystery that defies the usual category." (Chicago Sun-Times)