Anita! Congrats on a great book. I hope other folks writing history books learn from you. Keep on.”
– Pete Seeger, American folk singer and social activist
Millhunks and Renegades: A Portrait of a Pittsburgh Neighborhood puts the story back in history. Through interviews with folks aged 12 to 96, Anita Kulina has pieced together what could easily be the story of many urban neighborhoods across the nation. Travel from the “old country” with Irish, Italian and Slovak immigrants to Greenfield, a small town now part of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Share their dreams and hopes as, over generations, they fight Indian raids and corporate tyranny. Join them as they ride the Schenley Park carousel and spend their hard-earned leisure time at prize fights and sulky races. Walk with these strong, proud individuals as they build schools, homes, and lives as citizens of their adopted country, the United States of America.
Mrs. B is not just an old woman living out her twilight years at the senior center, but an able detective engaged in solving a mystery as cozy as cocoa and afghans on a cold Western Pennsylvania day.”
– Kathryn Miller Haines, author of the Rosie Winter Mysteries and the Iris Anderson Mysteries
Then she saw it – a sheet of paper in the mailbox, underneath the mail. It was white with large black letters and said LEAVE IT ALONE.
Mrs. B has a quiet life, and she likes it that way. Morning pinochle games at St. Mary’s Senior Center. Afternoon lunches with Myrtle, Anne and Rose. Peaceful evenings with a cup of coffee and the classic movie channel.
But one day she wakes to a phone call, which leads to consequences she could never have foreseen. Secrets snowball and threaten to change the neighborhood of Burchfield forever. Someone has to make things right. It’s up to Mrs. B.
If you can picture Columbo when he’s retired, and spending more time in church and the kitchen, and Polish, and wearing a babushka, you have a sense of the down-home detective that Anita Kulina has created. I love Mrs. B!”
– Brian O’Neill, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette columnist and author of The Paris of Appalachia
People don’t vanish into thin air. Yet no one has seen Alice since St. Mary’s Senior Center had their Supper Club outing on Sunday.
As Mrs. B learns more about her friend, the disappearance seems to involve a burglary, an emerald necklace and maybe even a motorcycle gang.
Where in heaven’s name is Alice?