You Can’t Hide What’s Inside: An Interlude in the Career of Miss Lizzie McManus

Set in the New Mexico Territory in November 1883, You Can't Hide What's Inside follows Miss Elizabeth Cormac McManus, a brilliant, unconvicted 31-year-old fixer and unregistered lobbyist who carries no gun, steals nothing, and relies entirely on procedural expertise, a bottle of scent called Consequence, and a linen cushion. Alongside her meticulous narrator, gentle giant Wilbur Nance, and former faro dealer Selina Vance, Lizzie trades in helping greedy men fail at unlawful ambitions.However, everything shifts when six ordinary citizens from the dry town of Bandera Wells travel to Santa Fe to protest a corrupt railroad syndicate stealing their vital spring water and subscription money. Armed with a doorknob seal, a legal loophole born from the exact moment North American railroads erased eleven minutes of time, and a devastatingly honest apology, Lizzie pivots away from pure grifting-ultimately founding the McManus Institute for Territorial Lobbying and Diplomatic Deportment to teach people how to claim what is rightfully theirs.