SCENT TO KILL

A naturopathic doctor tries to help a former boyfriend stay out of jail for murder.

After the murder of her aunt, Willow McQuade, ND, has left California behind, successfully taken over her aunt’s store in Greenport, Long Island, and nurtured a romantic relationship with Jackson Spade, the former police officer who helped her solve her aunt’s murder (Death Drops, 2012). Willow’s ex, Simon Lewis, has invited them to a party at the Bixby Estate, where Simon and Roger Bixby are involved in shooting a paranormal television show. When the contentious Roger is found drowned on the beach, the police fasten on Simon, who had a fight with him earlier that day. Despite her bad feeling about the old house, Willow can’t refuse Simon’s pleas for help. Soon, Jackson agrees to help with security, and Willow and her staff members take over a cottage on the estate to treat the stressed-out crew. Roger’s death is a blessing of sorts for Simon’s new girlfriend, Carly, who can now drop divorce proceedings against him. But his death changes nothing for his powder-keg brother Tom, also hired to work on the show, who continues to deny his problems with drinking and drugs. Also in residence in another cottage on the estate are the star of the show, spiritualist MJ, and her husband, Rick, and, in still another cottage, the caretaker and his family. When the autopsy shows that Roger was drowned in lavender bath water, Willow learns that his death apes the murder of the caretaker’s father, a case never solved but widely believed to have been committed by Roger’s father.

Like Willow’s debut, this sequel is stronger on aromatherapy than mystery.