Louisa and the Country Bachelor

Gentle Reader,In 1855, even though I was still the unknown "Louy" Alcott, I had started to reap some of the rewards of my labors. Under a pen name, I had sold a couple of my "blood and thunder" romance stories and a collection of children's fables, but Little Women was just the germ of an idea. I wish I could have said that much for murder ...After a bleak winter in Boston investigating the murder of a close friend, I was badly in need of wholesome air and sunshine. To that end, my family --- mother Abba, father Bronson, and my sisters, Lizzie, May, and Anna, and I --- visited our cousins in Walpole, New Hampshire. But as soon as we arrived in the peaceful hamlet, we were confronted with tragedy: the death of Ernst Nooteboom, who purportedly fell into a ravine while hiking.While his sister pointed her finger at the grocery store owner who coveted Ernst's land, I found no lack of other suspects with sinister motives. Despairing of the death of such a young man, I resolved to bring Ernst's murderer to justice. Louisa May Alcott