Patricia Harwin Bücher

"You're a librarian, not a detective," Catherine Penny's daughter reminds her. But Catherine, suddenly single in her sixties, finds it easy to slip into sleuthing mode when she leaves behind New York City and a failed marriage for a lovely 17th century cottage in the idyllic English village of Far Wychwood. But behind the town's quaint stone walls and lace-curtained windows lurk dark secrets and whispers of witchcraft. And when her crusty neighbor George Crocker dies in a tragic fire, Catherine alone suspects arson. Lacking hard evidence, the police pay little attention, and the villagers swear she must be mistaken. Catherine, however, is one feisty expatriate American who leaves no stone unturned when circumstances point to murder. She may not be Miss Marple--yet--but her ingenious knack for uncovering the truth is about to take Far Wychwood by storm!

Librarian and former New Yorker Catherine Penny has already sleuthed out the truth behind a deadly house fire since settling in the tiny English town of Far Wychwood. But nowhere is too far for painful memories to find her when her ex-husband, who left her single in her sixties, arrives with his new lady love to attend a family affair. Catherine can't avoid him at the awards ceremony honoring their son-in-law, Peter, who is a shoo-in for a prestigious appointment at Oxford's Mercy College. But the shock of Peter not being chosen is matched only by who is: pompous, womanizing scholar Edgar Stone. And when Stone is found murdered, Peter's guilt seems hardly academic....