This is planning ahead. Dana Stabenow’s recent newsletter revealed the cover of her forthcoming book, The Harvey Girl. It comes out on Feb. 24, 2026, but it’s already available to pre-order signed copies through The Poisoned Pen. Here’s Stabenow’s note.
Ta dah! Here it is in all its blinding glory, courtesy of editor Greg Rees at Head of Zeus. We launch it at the Poisoned Pen on February 28, 2026. Click through the image above to pre-order your copy, or click here to do same. And here’s a teensy excerpt just for you…
“You won’t be entirely on your own, Miss Wright.”
“No?”
“No. I have hired some, well, you might call it freelance assistance. They are already in place in Montaña Roja.”
Clare felt a sense of foreboding. “Is this freelance help named?”
He told her, and she closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again she noticed Pinkerton looking particularly smug.
He really must think she would get herself killed this time.
Here’s the summary of the book.
From the award-winning author of the Kate Shugak Mysteries, a thrilling new detective series set during America’s wild boom time and frontier expansion of the nineteenth century.
WELCOME TO THE GILDED AGE. WHERE NOT EVERYTHING GLITTERS.
1890: the Gilded Age, a period of financial success and political corruption. The United States is growing at a breathless rate, with six new states recently added to the Union.
With expansion comes an influx of crime. Outlaw gangs hold sway on the frontier and heists and robberies are commonplace. A lot of businesses shrug off these depredations as the cost of success. Those who don’t hire the Pinkerton Detective Agency to get their money back.
The Pinkertons’ newest operative is twenty-two-year-old Clare Wright. Highly educated, skilled with disguises, and handy enough in a fight, Clare’s future in the agency seems bright. But when she’s introduced to Fred Harvey, she finds herself thrown right into the heady mix of frontier life.
Harvey’s New Mexico hotel has been robbed and Clare is the perfect recruit to solve this mystery. Clare must infiltrate high society and win the confidence of killers like Butch Cassidy as she seeks the truth.
‘Let me recommend Dana Stabenow’ Diana Gabaldon
Dana Stabenow was born in Anchorage, Alaska and raised on a 75-foot fishing tender. She knew there was a warmer, drier job out there somewhere and found it in writing. Her first book in the bestselling Kate Shugak series, A Cold Day for Murder, received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America.
Follow Dana at stabenow.com