Cozy Mystery set in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. Contains recipes for handmade beauty products.
It’s a perfect, crisp October morning in Cadyville, Washington until soap maker Sophie Mae Reynolds discovers her handyman, Walter Hanover, dead on her workroom floor. The overturned glass of lye next to him and the gruesome burns on his mouth suggest suicide. But Sophie Mae is sure Walter didn’t kill himself: he had just won the WashingtonState lottery, asked his girlfriend to marry him and completed his sixth successful year of sobriety. With the help of her housemate and the town’s handsome police detective, Sophie Mae digs into her neighbor’s past and discovers a trail of money, arson, bigamy, mental illness, and heartbreak that leads to his killer.
Excerpt
That Thursday morning had been going so well until I found
the local handyman dead on my workroom floor. Walter lay on his
back, twisted to one side. His right hand was pressed to his throat.
The left clenched the chambray work shirt in front of his heart.
Streaks of moisture along the cuffs and in uneven splotches down
the front darkened the blue of the shirt’s fabric. I recognized the
signature yellow suspenders first, then the gray hair pulled back
into a ponytail.
Staring down at the ruin of his face, I covered my mouth with
one hand. His eyes were squeezed shut and his lips drawn back in
a horrific grimace. The interior of his open mouth was inflamed
and raw. His teeth, now a disturbing shade of dark gray, jutted
from what remained of his gums, and angry blisters welled on his
chin and jaw.
My gaze shifted to the open doorway, to where the sun had
finally pried its way through the clots of gray sludge above. The
Japanese maple in our backyard blazed incandescent orange
against the evergreens along the neighbor’s cedar fence. A chickadee
called through October air so crisp it would have crunched if
you bit into it …
Then I remembered to breathe. A long, shuddering inhalation,
and the oxygen hit my brain. Practicality surfaced through
my horror, and I spun and ran up the interior stairs to the main
part of the house. Through the kitchen and the foyer to Meghan’s
massage room, where I burst in without thinking. Thank God her
client was still dressed. Meghan’s eyes widened.
“Call 911,” I said.
Hi Cricket! I've just read the excerpt from your novel, "Lye in Wait" I found it quite an interesting story premise. Your writing style reminds me of that of Hemingway. Good work. Please feel free to check out a couple of my sites. I have one here in the "Den" and at www.freewebs.com/kendoo
All Carson Reno Mystery Series Books are standalone novels. It is not necessary to read them in any particular order.
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