A Gift for Murder
-
- $0.99
-
- $0.99
Publisher Description
For fifty-one weeks of the year, Heather McNeil loves her job as assistant to the director of the Washington DC Market Show Center. But the Gift and Home trade show, the biggest show of the year at the center, is a week-long nightmare. This year’s version is worse than usual. Misplaced shipments, feuding exhibitors, and malfunctioning popcorn machines are all in a day’s work. Finding the body of a murdered executive dumped in a trash bin during the show isn’t. The discovery tips Heather’s life into havoc.
The police have reason to suspect the victim’s wife killed him, but Heather doesn’t believe it. She’s gotten glimmers of an entirely different scenario and possible motive, but questioning exhibitors about the crime doesn’t make her popular with them or with her employers. Still, other lives might be at risk, and if she doesn’t identify the murderer before the show ends, the culprit could well remain free to kill again.
Her only help comes from a company executive with ulterior motives and the Market Center’s attractive new security officer, Scott Brandon. Despite opposition from some of the exhibitors, her employers, and the police, Heather seeks to expose the killer before the show ends. To solve the mystery she will have to risk what’s most important to her and be prepared to fight for answers, her job, and possibly her life.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Just before a busy gift and home trade show opens at the Commerce Market Show Center in Washington, D.C., in this lively first in a new cozy series, Heather McNeil discovers a crowbar-smashed corpse in the center's dumpster. Figuring out who wanted Tim Bethel, the co-owner of Grantwood Bethel, a supplier of gifts and accessories, dead is up to Det. Peter Gilmont, but plucky Heather, the overworked assistant to the center's director, and her potential boyfriend, security guard Scott Brandon, show they're up to the job and more as they get on the track of Tim's killer. Despite some padding and predictable twists, McCullough (A Question of Fire) shows real flare in describing the hectic trade show world, including an exhibitor with a smelly, malfunctioning popcorn machine.