num_pages: 264
description: Its 1972 and fourteen-year-old New Yorker Elizabeth Landers is sent to the sleepy town of Ahoskie North Carolina to spend the summer with relatives. Her expectation of boredom is quickly dispelled when police sirens and flashing lights draw her to a horrible scene at the Danbury Bridge. Mr. Samuel owner of Samuels Lumber Yard has driven his car off the bridge and into the river drowning himself and his daughter. The medical examiner thinks its an accident but the Sheriff finds fresh bullet holes on the bridge right where the skid marks are. Curiously Mr. Samuel died clutching a unique 1909 wheat pennya penny that is then stolen from the Sheriffs office. Lizbeth witnesses Miss Violets grief upon learning that her husband and child are dead and decides she will help by finding the penny.Her search involves Lizbeth in the lives of many Ahoskie residents. Like the owner of the grocery store mean old Mr. Jake whoas all the kids in Ahoskie knowhates black folks. Plenty of pennies in his till. Then there is Ms. Melanie Neely otherwise known as Ms. McMeanie who thinks the lumber yard should belong to her. And Mr. Samuels handsome brother Ben who struggles to keep the business afloat after his more clever brothers death. Lizbeth searches through the collection plates at church and in the coin jars of crazy old Aunt Ode a strange old woman missing one eye and most of her teeth who keeps a flask in her apron pocket and a secret in her soul.
language: English
title: Mr. Samuel's Penny: An Elizabeth Parrot Mystery
publisher: The Poisoned Pencil