Murder at the Old Howard: The Second Porridge Sisters Mystery (Porridge Sisters Adventures)

Murder at the Old Howard is the Second Porridge Sisters Adventure written by Frank Cullen & Donald McNeilly, winners of the Theatre Museum of New York’s 2011 Award for Excellence in the Preservation of Theatre History. Florrie and Lavinia Portridge are well-known among vaudevillians and actors as “The Porridge Sisters” for the vegetarian cuisine they serve at Portridge Arms, a “boardinghouse for theatricals” that offers comfort, cleanliness and a bohemian camaraderie. The projected series of seven Porridge Sisters Mysteries takes place in Boston between 1908 and 1932. The Murder at the Tremont Theatre occurred in 1908. In 1912, straightforward and sensible Lavinia and intuitive but erratic Florrie are drawn into the investigation of a sexual-slavery ring that a local newspaper claims is operating out of the Old Howard burlesque theatre in Boston’s infamous Scollay Square. Agnes, their maid, is frantic about the disappearance of her cousin Gracie who has run away with a burlesque troupe. Pony Harris, the reporter who wrote the story about “white slavery” is looking for his missing girlfriend Myra, an Old Howard chorus girl and the source for his story. Tommy, the orphaned newsboy adopted by the Porridge Sisters, is worried about his friend Pony, and Inspector Malachi Brody fears that, once again, the Porridge Sisters are becoming embroiled in a mystery that will lead to Murder at the Old Howard!