TIDE AND PUNISHMENT

A gnomish murder muddles Christmas festivities on Charm Island.

Charm is a small, clannish island on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Mayor Dunfree wants to keep it that way; Fran Swan, one of his opponents in the current election, is supported by Charmers for Change. One such Charmer is Everly Swan, owner of the cafe Sun, Sand and Tea, who returned to Charm after a difficult breakup and gave widowed police detective Grady Hays the key to her heart. Clara and Fran, Everly’s eccentric and beloved great-aunts, own Blessed Bee, a shop that features all things bee-related. When Dunfree is bashed to death with one of Clara’s gnomes at Everly’s Christmas party, Grady must consider Fran, whom Everly found clutching a shattered gnome, his first suspect. To add to the difficulties, Charm is in the midst of a rare major snowstorm that threatens to bury evidence in drifts. The morning after Dunfree’s demise, Everly (No Good Tea Goes Unpunished, 2019, etc.) fires up her trusty golf cart and plows through the snow to town, where someone has stolen all the gnomes outside Blessed Bee. Everly is busy baking cookies night and day and planning her food for the progressive dinner, a long-standing island tradition, but she can’t resist investigating the murder, much to Grady’s dismay. Though she begins to receive threats, Everly is undeterred. Grady has his own problems with his rich and powerful mother-in-law, Sen. Olivia Denver, who’s just bought a house on Charm and plans to run for mayor. Everly learns that there are a long string of people with grievances against Dunfree. Now she just has to pick out the killer before Christmas is ruined and her aunt’s arrested.

Oodles of Christmas cheer bolster a thin mystery.