MURDER WILL OUT

A Little North Island Historical Society Mystery

Winner: 2024 Minotaur Books/MWA First Crime Novel Competition

Grad student Willow Stone is introverted and shy, burying her loneliness in musical studies and organ practice. She hasn’t seen or heard from her estranged godmother Susan in over fifteen years—but when she receives a letter from Sue, tucked into an envelope with a news clipping about her tragic death the night before her wedding, Willow immediately returns to the little island where she had visited her godmother as a child.

At Sue’s memorial reception, in front of half the village, Sue’s volatile fiancée Rina threatens to kill the 83-year-old island billionaire now in line to inherit Sue’s historical mansion; hours later, the man collapses, apparently poisoned. Willow, caught in the tangle of buried secrets and old resentments of the island community, is determined to prove Rina innocent, but first she needs figure out why everyone who owns the reputedly haunted mansion seems to wind up dead. Someone on Little North Island is determined to own the big old house and will stop at nothing, including murder, to secure it for their own. Confused and alone, Willow has no idea who of the island’s inhabitants she can trust.

Fortunately, the living aren’t Willow’s only allies. And the ghosts of Cameron House have their own plans for their house and its future, and their own stories to tell.

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