Death of a Lady Pilot
Women's Air Service (working title) is the third conceived book in the Eden Pond Series.
Overview
In 1943, Tillie Larkin, close friend of Eden Pond and flight instructor for the War Training Service, attends the opening of the Tillamook Naval Air Station. There, she lobbies the station commander for a place in the squadron, but he laughs her off. A longtime crop duster and barnstormer, Tillie intends to show the male Navy pilots she’s just as capable as they are, or maybe even better. She plans a few stunts in her biplane that’ll curl their hair. But as she clears the runway and climbs, her engine stalls and the biplane crashes, killing Tillie on impact.
The Navy quickly writes the crash off as pilot error, but Eden knows her friend was too experienced to make a careless mistake. She suspects something more sinister, perhaps even sabotage by military men who resented a woman pilot. With only the reluctant support of her reticent older brother, she sets out to learn the truth about Tillie’s untimely end.
Chronology
The events of the novel take place in August 1943. Women's Air Service follows Murder at the Shipyard and precedes Hanford Intrigue.