Miss Dimple Picks a Peck of Trouble (31 page)

Surrounded by the enemy and suffering himself with an infection from a wound on his leg, Frazier managed to get his injured captain to a bombed-out shell of a farmhouse, where the two survived on stale cheese and sprouting potatoes until American forces captured the bridges and neighboring towns, eventually driving the German army across France. The wounded officer was still recovering, but Frazier had since been reunited with his unit.

There was not one person in Phoebe Chadwick’s backyard that sunny September afternoon who didn’t join Annie in rejoicing over the news in her long-awaited letter, for all of them were united in the cause of victory, and every one of them had a loved one on some foreign shore.

And Miss Dimple Kilpatrick had more than anyone.

ALSO BY

Mignon F. Ballard

Miss Dimple Suspects

Miss Dimple Rallies to the Cause

Miss Dimple Disappears

THE AUGUSTA GOODNIGHT MYSTERIES

Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed

The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders

Too Late for Angels

The Angel Whispered Danger

Shadow of an Angel

An Angel to Die For

Angel at Troublesome Creek

The Christmas Cottage

The War in Sallie’s Station

Minerva Cries Murder

Final Curtain

The Widow’s Woods

Deadly Promise

Cry at Dusk

Raven Rock

Aunt Matilda’s Ghost

About the Author

MIGNON F. BALLARD is the author of three previous Miss Dimple mysteries, along with seven mysteries featuring angelic sleuth Augusta Goodnight,
The Christmas Cottage
, and
The War in Sallie’s Station
, a novel about growing up in rural Georgia during World War II. She lives in her hometown of Calhoun, Georgia.

Visit her online at
www.mignonballard.com
.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

MISS DIMPLE PICKS A PECK OF TROUBLE.
Copyright © 2014 by Mignon F. Ballard. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein

Cover illustration by Gary Walton

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Ballard, Mignon F.

    Miss Dimple picks a peck of trouble / Mignon F. Ballard. — 1st ed.

        p.  cm.

    ISBN 978-1-250-03562-2 (hardcover)

    ISBN 978-1-250-03563-9 (e-book)

  1.  Women teachers—Fiction.   2.  Elementary school teachers—Fiction.   3.  Teenage girls—Crimes against—Fiction.   4.  World War, 1939–1945—Georgia—Fiction.   I.  Title.

    PS3552.A466M58 2014

    813'.54—dc23

2013032597

e-ISBN 9781250035639

First Edition: February 2014