The Marmalade Alibi

Nora Fenwick makes the best marmalade in Thistlewick. What she doesn't make is trouble — until the county fair's notoriously sour head judge takes one taste of the winning jar, praises it to the crowd, and drops dead in front of two hundred people.

The jar belonged to June Petrakis, Nora's best friend since the fourth grade. By noon, Deputy Sam Aldridge has orders to arrest her.

Nora has until the fairground gates close at sundown. After that the vendors pack up, the out-of-town visitors scatter, and every alibi worth checking leaves with them. So she starts asking questions between customers — about a tarnished silver tasting flask that shouldn't have been on the judging table, about which fair board member has been quietly rewriting the competition rules, and about why the victim spent his last morning in the records tent instead of tasting preserves.

The trouble is that Nora has a motive of her own. Everyone at the fair remembers the shouting match after he panned her shop in the county paper. And Sam, who is starting to think June didn't do it, is protecting someone too.

A warm, wry small-town mystery with fair-play clues, no gore, and a jam-shop owner who turns out to be very good at noticing what other people miss.