Judged And Found Wanting

A small-town cozy mystery where a dead historian leaves Dorothy Meade questioning the people who taught her to judge.

At the season's final fair outside Ludlow, Iowa, Dorothy Meade returns to the familiar world of home-arts classes and judging credentials. The ledger has recorded her life's work, her mother's before it, and the names of the people she trusts most.

Historian Wendell Sharp is researching the circuit's beginnings. He believes the old certification records will complete his book. Then he is found dead in the credentialing office, beneath a fallen shelf of ledgers, and Dorothy sees a scene too orderly to accept as an accident.

As rival ambitions and institutional loyalties close ranks, Dorothy follows certification dates, old seals, and timelines that refuse to agree. What began as a question about one man's death threatens to overturn the history of the whole circuit—and the foundations of her own confidence.

Del Rourke has his own reasons to care about the answers, and Dorothy can no longer avoid asking what they are. With her beagle Reserve picking up what people overlook, she must apply her exacting eye to a record she has never doubted and people she has never thought to question.

Judged and Found Wanting is Book 9 of The County Fair Mysteries, bringing a wry older sleuth to her most personal investigation yet. How do you judge the truth when it may change the meaning of your own life?

For readers who love:

•   Archival puzzles, forged records, and hidden histories

•   Older heroines confronting deeply personal mysteries

•   Secrets beneath respected community institutions

•   Steady romance, dry wit, and a beagle with good instincts