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Murder in the Tea Leaves by Laura ChildsWhen Theodosia Browning reads the tea leaves on the set of the movie, Dark Fortunes, things go from spooky to worse. Lights are dimmed, the camera rolls, and red hot sparks fly as the film’s director is murdered in a tricky electrical accident.
Or was it an accident? Though the cast and crew are stunned beyond belief, nobody admits to seeing a thing. And when Theodosia’s friend, Delaine, becomes the prime suspect, Theodosia begins her own shadow investigation. But who among this Hollywood cast and crew had murder on their mind? The screenwriter is a self-centered pot head, the leading actress is trying to wiggle out of her contract, the brand new director seems indifferent, and nobody trusts the slippery-when-dry Hollywood agent.
Between hosting a Breakfast at Tiffany’s Tea, a Poetry Tea, and trying to launch her own chocolate line, Theodosia doggedly hunts down clues and explores the seemingly haunted Brittlebank Manor where the murder took place. And just when she’s ready to pounce, a Charleston Film Board member is also murdered, throwing everything into total disarray. But this clever killer will go to any lengths to hide his misdeeds as Theodosia soon finds out when she and her tea sommelier, Drayton, get caught up in a dangerous stakeout.
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| Sniffing Out Murder by Kallie E. BenjaminAfter deciding that life as a teacher wasn’t right for her, Priscilla found inspiration for her first children’s book in her three-year-old bloodhound’s nose for truth, and so The Adventures of Bailey the Bloodhound was born. After the book’s massively pawsitive response led Pris to move back to her hometown of Crosbyville, Indiana, to continue the series, she’s surprised by how things have changed in the town, but even more so how they haven’t.
Pris is frustrated to discover that newly elected school board trustee Whitney Kelley—a former high school mean girl—is intent on making Crosbyville more competitive by eliminating “frivolous spending” on the arts and social programs, including Pris and Bailey’s beloved pet-assisted reading program. A minor altercation between them isn’t anything unusual, but after Bailey sniffs out Whitney’s body in a bed of begonias, locals start hounding Pris and Bailey as suspects for the crime.
With Bailey’s sharp senses and Pris’s hometown know-how, can they prove to the community that they’re all barking up the wrong tree? |
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The Last Note of Warning
by Katharine Schellman
Prohibition is a dangerous time to be a working-class woman in New York City, but Vivian Kelly has finally found some measure of stability and freedom. By day, she's a respectable shop assistant, delivering luxurious dresses to the city's wealthy and elite. At night, she joins the madcap revelry of New York's underworld, serving illegal drinks and dancing into the morning at a secretive, back-alley speakeasy known as the Nightingale.
She's found, if not love, then something like it with her bootlegger sweetheart, Leo, even if she can't quite forget the allure of the Nightingale's sultry owner, Honor Huxley. Then the husband of a wealthy client is discovered dead in his study, and Vivian was the last known person to see him alive.
With the police and the press both eager to name a culprit in the high-profile case, she finds herself the primary murder suspect. She can't flee town without endangering the people she loves, but Vivian isn't the sort of girl to go down without a fight. She'll cash in every favor she has from the criminals she calls friends to prove she had no connection to the dead man. But she can't prove what isn't true. The more Vivian digs into the man's life, and as the police close in on her, the harder it is to avoid the truth: someone she knows wanted him dead.
And the best way to get away with murder is to set up a girl like Vivian to take the fall.
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First Frost: A Longmire Mystery by Craig JohnsonWalt Longmire returns in this twentieth installment of the award-winning and bestselling series that has been a hit on both the page and the screen. Set in the unpsoiled countryside of Wyoming, Sheriff Walt Longmire has to navigate his own increasingly complicated personal life with the ever-changing and often violent underworld that encroaches on what was once referred to as the Old West. This time, he is up against a sinister plot that could hurt the people closest to him and forever change the way he sees his beloved Wyoming.
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Shiloh Bellamy can hardly believe it―for the first time in her family farm's seventy-year history, she has managed to score a highly-coveted booth at the Cherry Farm Market in Traverse City, Michigan. It's a huge win in her master plan to bring the rundown farm back to life… and the fact that her coup has sent her next-door neighbor and organic farming competitor into fits of jealousy doesn't hurt, either. But the festive atmosphere at the farm market takes a dark turn when a man entered in the famous cherry pit-spitting competition chokes and dies right in front of Shiloh, who is standing near the sidelines as a spectator.. When the death turns out to be more suspicious than a cherry pit down the wrong pipe, Shiloh finds herself under local law enforcement's microscope―she has developed something of a reputation for being unwittingly involved in local murders. And when they discover her cousin Stacey had been secretly dating the man in question―and that he was married to someone else―Shiloh begins to worry that everything she has worked so hard to accomplish with her family's farm is about to be taken away. It will take all her investigative skills, a tenuous friendship (or is it something more?) with the local sheriff, and some help from Shiloh's trusty pug, Huckleberry, to prove the cops are barking up the wrong cherry tree and put the real killer behind bars for good.
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Cheater
by Karen Rose
A shocking murder leaves an affluent retirement community reeling in this riveting high-stakes thriller. Death is not an unfamiliar visitor to Shady Oaks Retirement Village, which provides San Diego's premier elderly support from independent retiree housing to full-time hospice care.
But when a resident's body is found brutally stabbed and his apartment ransacked, it's clear there's someone deadly in their community. Detective Katherine "Kit" McKittrick quickly discovers that Shady Oaks is full of skeleton-riddled closets, and most tenants prefer to keep their doors firmly closed to the SDPD.
A longtime volunteer at the retirement facility, Dr. Sam Reeves honors his late grandfather's memory by playing the piano for the residents regularly. So it shouldn't be such a surprise when Kit crosses paths with him during her investigation, after she'd avoided the criminal psychologist - and the emotions he evokes - for the last six months. Sam's rapport within the retirement village proves vital to the case, and the pair find themselves working together once again - much to Kit's dismay.
But she is determined to apprehend the shadow of death lurking around Shady Oaks...and equally determined to ignore the feelings she's developing for a certain psychologist.
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I Only Read Murder
by Ian Ferguson
Miranda Abbott, once known for the crime-solving, karate-chopping church pastor she played on network television, has hit hard times. She's facing ruin when a mysterious postcard arrives, summoning her to Happy Rock, a small town in the Pacific Northwest. But when she gets there, nothing is what she expected.
In dire straits, she signs up for an amateur production at the Happy Rock Little Theater. On opening night, one of the actors is murdered, live, in front of the audience. But no one actually saw what happened. Now everyone is under a cloud of suspicion, including the town doctor, the high school drama teacher, an oil-stained car mechanic, an elderly gentleman who may have been in the CIA-and Miranda herself.
Clearly, the only way to solve this mystery is for Miranda to summon her skills as television's Pastor Fran. Because the show must go on!
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Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni are enjoying a nice meal out at a peri-peri restaurant when an American woman named Julia approaches seeking Mma Ramotswe’s help. Julia’s beloved late grandfather was Botswanan, and he instilled in her an abiding love of his homeland. Now, years after his passing, Julia has come to visit the land he had spoken of so often and to find her relatives. Unfortunately, her grandfather’s stories, while charming and entertaining, were somewhat light on detail; all Julia can remember are a few first names and some descriptions of his village. It’s not a lot to go on, but if anyone is well poised to help, it’s Mma Ramotswe, Botswana’s premier detective.
Meanwhile, a second case leads Mma Ramotswe to look for assistance from an unexpected quarter. For the first time, Charlie leads his own investigation at the detective agency, going undercover into a dubious, word-of-mouth get-together known as the Cool Singles Evening Club, where married men are encouraged to pretend to be single and meet women under false pretenses. Who could be behind such a distasteful venture? Getting to the bottom of this will be a tall order, to be sure, but Charlie is eager for the opportunity.
As Mma Ramotswe learns more about Julia, she begins to understand that Julia’s heartbreak runs deeper than she had initially realized. Together, Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane must find a way to help their client heal and move forward—from both her past and her present. Julia had originally come to Botswana seeking family and connection, but in the warm embrace of Mma Ramotswe and Mma Potokwane, what she ends up finding is a home.
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Contact your librarian for more great books!
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