Hilda Lawrence

From Goodreads: "When Regan Carr’s mother passes away from illness, the young woman is hard-pressed. Her part-time job as a small town librarian for $25 a week (roughly equivalent to an $8/hr job in 2017) is not sufficient to cover the doctor’s bills and other expenses of her mother’s final days, let alone allow her to live in any sort of comfort. So when a letter arrives from her distant (and wealthy) cousin Hurst Herald, asking her to live with him, Regan decides to give it a try. But when Regan arrives with her meager possessions, Hurst Herald is dead. And he evidently hadn’t told the rest of the family she was coming, so the relatives view Regan with suspicion. There are those who seem glad to see her; Miss Etta, a kleptomaniac pensioner who was an old friend of Hurst’s, and the Crain sisters, elderly maids who appreciate Regan’s kindness. The relatives warm up a bit when she proves her arrival was expected, and Regan is given an out-of-the-way room for the moment. This novel is in the Southern Gothic tradition, featuring a dysfunctional family with dark secrets living in a fine mansion that is beginning to decay. It’s a slow burn in many, many ways–it’s halfway through before Regan realizes that the family’s history of tragic accidents doesn’t include any actual accidents. Much depends on her suppressed memories of what happened in the pavilion out back of the house during her childhood visit."

From doverpublications dot com: "Did she jump or was she pushed? When Ruth Miller's broken body is retrieved from the pavement below her New York City room, everyone assumes that her seven-story drop was a suicide leap — almost everyone, that is. One of the young department store clerk's customers suspects foul play, hiring detective Mark East to take a close look at the boarding house and its residents. Hope House, a Home for Working Girls, provides a haven for young women who are barely scraping by in the Big Apple. But the sanctuary is haunted by Ruth's sudden departure, and after a second violent death, the lodgers begin eyeing one another with suspicion. As the tension builds, East's investigation receives an unexpected assist from Beulah Pond and Bessy Petty, spinsters whose amateur sleuthing adds comic appeal to this atmospheric and suspenseful whodunit."