Board to Death
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In a trendy Salt Lake City, Utah, neighborhood, Ben Rosencrantz’s board game shop has become a community hotspot for players of all ages—and for killer collectors.
Back in his hometown of Sugar House, running his family’s board game shop and café, Ben Rosencrantz just can’t seem to get his life to pass go, much less collect $200. Once he was a happily married English professor in Seattle. Now he’s a divorced caregiver, looking after his ill father and a Chihuahua named Beans while still figuring out the rules of retail management. At least the town has become more LGBTQ+ friendly than when Ben was a teenager—and that flower shop owner, Ezra McCaslin, enjoys flirting with him.
But despite his usual clientele of gamers, Ben is barely earning enough to keep the store running and stay on top of his father’s medical bills. Then a local toy and game collector named Clive offers him a winning strategy—to purchase a turn-of-the-twentieth-century edition of The Landlord’s Game, the realty and taxation game that inspired Monopoly, at a tenth of the rare edition’s true value. Suspicious of Clive’s shady, low-priced deal, Ben turns the offer down.
Then Clive turns up dead at the front door of Ben’s shop and a backpack full of $100 bills appears on his doorstep. Now Ben is the #1 suspect in Clive’s death, and unless he and Ezra can prove his innocence and find the real killer, he’ll go to jail for murder—and no amount of double dice rolls will set him free . . .
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Connor's sweet yet slight debut combines a tender romance with an underwhelming mystery. Nearing 30 and recovering from a divorce, Ben Rosencrantz leaves his position as an English professor to accept a job at his father's board game emporium in Salt Lake City. Seedy local Clive Newton enters the shop one afternoon and offers to sell Ben a rare and valuable edition of The Landlord's Game, a prototype for Monopoly. Suspicious of Clive's low asking price, Ben turns the offer down. A few hours later, after the shop has closed, Ben hears someone knocking, and upon opening the door finds Clive with a knife sticking out of his chest. Fearing he might wind up a suspect in Clive's murder, Ben sets out to find the real perpetrator, with the help of handsome flower shop owner Ezra McCaslin. The two fall for each other as they descend into the cutthroat subculture of board game collecting. Clive and Ezra's chemistry is palpable, but the stakes of their investigation are low, and there's very little sleuthing. This is for cozy fanciers who prefer a charming romance to a crafty whodunit.