Looking for a gripping murder mystery with a feisty female sleuth? Meet Alex Duggins in this new series from a bestselling author.
The Black Dog, owned by super-hostess Alex Duggins, is usually everyone’s favourite watering hole. But not tonight.
The regulars just heard that one of their own is dead.
His body is found sprawled across the stage of the Playing Fields barn. A knife buried in his back.
In life, he loved to tread the boards as an amateur player. Now someone’s made a twisted show of his death.
Detective Dan O’Reilly is on the case, following a trail that leads straight to Alex’s pub. He says the killer has claimed at least one other victim. The police found the battered body at the local cricket grounds. Posed in the same eerie manner.
They’ve killed before. It’s only a matter of time before they kill again.
But with no witnesses, no leads and not a shred of evidence, the investigation is going nowhere fast.
As much as village sleuth Alex wants to help, she has other matters on her mind. Matters even closer to her heart. Just when it seems her dream wedding is finally within reach, someone from her fiancé’s past reaches out to threaten all that Alex holds dear.
Are they who they claim to be, and what do they really want with Alex and her man . . . ?
Perfect for fans of Faith Martin, Agatha Christie, J.R. Ellis and Clare Chase.
Stella Cameron is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author with over fourteen million copies of her books in print.
MEET ALEX AND TONY
People think Alex is the perfect girl-next-door, but she’s made of sterner stuff than most girls-next-door. Divorced pub owner and graphic artist, she meets challenges head on, especially when she decides to stand up for justice and the underdog. Alex is no stranger to trouble, , never has been since she was a scrappy young girl with no dad and a mum working around the clock to keep them together.
Alex’s fiancé Tony Harrison is a vet. A quiet man with a sharp wit and heart of gold, he has taken hard knocks, not the least the loss of a young wife who disappeared, never to be found.
THE VILLAGE
A view of Folly from The Hill is cause for a smile in any season. Let’s try December, early on a cold morning. Snow covers frozen twigs that crackle beneath your feet. The snowfall is only a fine swirl now. On a high point to the west stands ruined Tinley Tower, the folly the village was named for. Below, across the green with its frozen duck pond, honey-yellow cottages huddle. Thin smoke straggles from chimneys and lights shine through small leaded windows. The Black Dog, Alex’s pub, sits at the heart of it all, strands of colored lights shining along its eaves. Idyllic. Deceptively so?
