This is an anthology of crime stories about voter suppression, with the profits going to the ACLU Foundation. It starts out with this light piece set in Massachusetts.
Our narrator is Thomas Coffee, a private eye who is hired by a rather obnoxious woman to find her father who vanished a few hours earlier. In fact, a whole segment of the town has disappeared. On the very day of the traditional New England town meeting. Hmm...
Here is a bit of the flavor of the place and the story:
In 1903 the Joppa Town Meeting accepted, by a vote of 128 to 126, a twenty-thousand dollar library grant from Andrew Carnegie. The close vote showed that the only thing flinty New Englanders trusted less than outsiders was outsiders with money.
They may have a point. Fun story anyway.
