In the picture above, I’m at the entrance of the National Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The museum is a must-see for those who want to learn more about the war and its times. For two floors, visitors are given realistic portrayals of scenes from the Civil War, explanations of the guns, noteworthy people, and other artifacts from the period. The museum is fresh and informative.

I use so much of what I learn in museums and battlefields in my historical mysteries. In the Katie Harris series, Mae McGraw transports readers back in time to post Civil War America to follow her exploits.

In Bitter Medicine Nurse Katie Harris returns home to Ohio from the Civil War with the desire to be a doctor and learns that her brother’s been murdered. With a fight against time and an incompetent town marshal, Katie must put her dreams on hold and find the murderer before he strikes again.

In Dangerous Medicine, the second in the Katie Harris series, which will be available later this year, it’s still 1865. The law is such that a woman can be put in an insane asylum by any male family member and one doctor’s assessment. Apprentice doctor Katie Harris must solve a man’s murder and free the victim’s wife, who has been unjustly committed to an asylum.

Mae McGraw is the pen name for me, Kim Wuescher. I live in Medina, Ohio, with my husband, Rick. We have two adult children Christian and Diane. My first career was teaching AP and Senior English at a public high school, where I shared my love of literature with my students. Now American history has become my passion.

I am the past president of the Northeast Ohio chapter of Sisters in Crime, a mystery writers and readers’ organization. I am also a member of the Literary Cleveland, and the Medina County Historical Society, where I learned more about Medina’s role during the Civil War. With its close access to Lake Erie and Canada, Medina was instrumental in the underground railroad, so discovering this was the spark to learning more about the Civil War period. The Katie Harris mysteries are the  result.