How to Book a Murder
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4.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
A delightful cozy mystery series debut featuring a charming Colorado bookstore, “engaging characters, twisty plotting, and literary references sure to charm mystery fans” (Laura DiSilverio).
Small-town bookseller and literary event planner Emma Starrs is out to close the book on a killer intent on crashing the party.
To help save her family’s floundering Colorado bookstore, Starlit Bookshop, newly minted Ph.D. Emma Starrs agrees to plan a mystery-themed dinner party for her wealthy, well-connected high school classmate Tabitha Baxter. It’s a delightful evening of cocktails and conjecture until Tabitha’s husband, Tip—hosting the affair in the guise of Edgar Allan Poe’s detective C. Auguste Dupin—winds up murdered.
In a heartbeat, Emma and her aunt Nora, a famous mystery writer, become suspects. Emma is sure the party’s over for Starlit events, until celebrated author Calliope Nightfall, whose gothic sensibilities are intrigued by the circumstances, implores the bookseller to create a Poe-themed launch event for her latest tome. Throwing a bash to die for while searching for additional clues is already enough to drive Emma stark raven mad, but another shocking crime soon reveals that Silvercrest has not yet reached the final chapter of the puzzling case.
Someone in this charming artistic community has murder on the mind, and if Emma cannot outwit the killer, she and her beloved aunt will land behind bars, to walk free nevermore.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This congenial series launch from Agatha Award winner Kuhn (the Lila Maclean series) introduces sisters Lucy and Emma Starrs. Lucy took over running the Starlit Bookshop in Silvercrest, Colo., after their parents' untimely death, and is now assisted by Emma, who despite a PhD in English has forsaken an academic career. With the bookstore on the verge of closing, Emma organizes an Edgar Allan Poe–themed mystery party to help raise money to save it. Emma's willing to do so even though the party is in honor of wealthy Tabitha Baxter, her high school nemesis. The party takes a macabre turn when Tabitha's husband, who's dressed as Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin, turns up murdered. Matters go from bad to worse when the clues point to Emma as the killer, and handsome Det. Jake Hollister, who investigates, unsettles Emma just as much as he did when they were in high school. The tension rises as the sisters and their mystery writer aunt set out at their peril to solve their own whodunit. Kuhn breaks no new ground, but cozy fans will look forward to seeing more of the Starrs sisters.
