A JUST CLAUSE

By Lorna Barrett

Readers will love the fact that they get to go back to the fun mystery bookstore located in Booktown, N.H., called Haven’t Got a Clue. This is one of those locales found in cozy mystery series’ that you wish was a real place.

Tricia Miles, for those who have not been lucky enough to read all of the great stories in this series, is the owner of Haven’t Got a Clue bookstore. Not only that, but she’s also what you would call an amateur sleuth who seems to fall into a new mystery every time she finally has put one behind her.

This time around, she and her friend Angelica are having an awesome book-signing event inside the store when Tricia’s not-very-gentlemanly father drops in out of nowhere. His name is John and he’s one of those men who seems to be constantly drowning in scandal. Now, he has become the prime suspect in the murder of a woman who played a part in his gossip-filled past. Even though Tricia knows her father’s character, she’s more than a bit emotional when the Stoneham police tell her facts that she’d never known: her father is also a con man who has actually done jail time.

But her father is not the only suspect. After all, bestselling thriller author Steven Richardson arrived for the book signing just before the crime occurred, and a copy of his latest bestseller, already signed, was with the victim.

Tricia has questions and she is determined to find answers. Add to all this the fact that she wants this solved and buried before the town’s first wine and jazz festival commences, and you have a sleuth whose time is running out.

Author Lorna Barrett has always delivered fun mysteries with characters that are so vibrant they practically jump off the page. And with this latest Booktown Mystery, she continues to deliver just that.