Progressive History with a Mystery Twist. The Mangle is the sixth book in the award-winning Sage Adair historical mystery series. The author, S.L. Stoner, is a longtime labor union lawyer and native Oregonian. Reviewers have said that the series, "using simple and spare" language, "combines rousing adventure with accurate back-to-the-past details" to create "a riveting blend of history and mystery."
The story begins when Sage's mother Mae goes undercover as a steam laundry worker alongside women working six-day weeks, ten-hour days. Exhausted and ill they implore the laundry owners to institute nine-hour workdays. The insertion of white slavers, arsonists, and kidnappers into the ensuing labor dispute leaves Sage facing a nearly insurmountable problem when two women disappear. Even as Sage, Mae and their colorful associates hunt for the missing women, they continue helping the laundry workers win relief.
Like the series' other books, The Mangle is a story built around the true-life actions of ordinary people at the beginning of the twentieth century. This time the focus is on the progressive women who were tackling a number of social injustices: wage inequality, prostitution, social diseases, and poverty. As the historical notes at the story's end reveal, these women's efforts changed history–for the entire country.
