Little Cicero — Duane Schwartz

Take a police chief who has never before served in law enforcement, push a reluctant but more convenient than qualified doctor into the job of coroner, insert a mayor in his first few weeks of holding any office, and show them a water-filled mine pit with bodies dressed in costumes of the roaring twenties popping to its surface, and what you get is a fiasco of epic proportions. Add to that a ninety-six-year old former Catholic nun who knows the story but will only dish it out in portions to a team of amateurs who are unsure she will live to tell, and an eccentric mining company employee who has everything to lose if the truth be told, and you have what should be an unsolvable crime. True enough for most, but this team of know-nothings will surprise. And their journey to the bottom of the truth is the journey found within the pages of Little Cicero. Little Cicero is the nickname given a small town on Minnesota's picturesque Mesabi Iron Range for its similarity to the Cicero, Illinois of Capone days; the streets of both having been honeycombed with tunnels for ease of travel from speakeasy to speakeasy during prohibition. The story surrounding the town explores the happenings of an earlier time through the ongoing investigation of an old woman who lived it, and the relationship that develops between her and the novice police chief as she relives those early memories reveal two things: the new chief is capable of getting to the truth, and his inexperience hinders him from taking action, even when the truth may involve murder.