Death in the Afternoon

NOTE: I’m still working on this, the first book in the Modern Speakeasy Mysteries, so the blurb below will be refined over time. This is the off-the-cuff, down-and-dirty, hastily written idea of Ellie, Zach, The Pierce House, and Paradise Springs, California. Expect an entertaining cast of locals, cocktail and mocktail recipes, food to accompany the beverages, hidden passageways, family secrets, and fun.

Ellie was perfectly content with her life. She was fulfilling every promise she’d made to her dad before he died. He told her to never pass up an opportunity, so the surprise scholarship that allowed her to attend university was perfect. After she lost her dad the small inheritance allowed her to stick around and finish a master’s degree. Now she was the proud owner of her dream bookshop cafe, she had her kitty, Hemingway, and plenty of acquaintances she called friends. She wasn’t lonely, much, and having no living relatives was rather freeing, wasn’t it?

So, when a telegram (a real TELEGRAM) is delivered requested that she attend the reading of a will she’s torn. Her father was her last living relative, so there was no one left to die and leave her anything. Plus, she’d learned how to live this quiet life. Did she really want to invite the unknown into her calm existence?

Ellie knows what her dad would say. Opportunities aren’t like buses, another one isn’t right behind this one. You need to climb aboard and see where it goes!

Which is how Ellie finds herself with a new cousin, in a new house, in a new town, on a different coast. And, as if that isn’t enough of a challenge, throw in a few dead bodies.

One thing Ellie isn’t is a quitter. She promised her new cousin, Zach, that she’d uphold the stipulations of the will and refurbish Pierce House to its former glory before the annual Paradise Springs Festival. But, once she’s met her promise she planned to hightail it back to Boston and the bookstore.

She just hopes she’ll still be alive to make her escape.