SCOTCHED

A quiet Maine town’s affinity for murder is about to be announced to the world.

Liss MacCrimmon runs Moosetookalook’s Scottish Emporium when she’s not nosing around as an amateur sleuth. All the town businesspeople are happy that the First Annual Maine-ly Cozy Con is being held at the family-owned hotel run by Liss’ fiancé Dan until the arrival of a snoopy reviewer and blogger who threatens to disclose long-buried secrets. When her body is discovered at the bottom of a cliff, her death is at first written off as an accident until a closer look reveals that it was murder. Both Dan and Liss’ former boyfriend, State Police detective Gordon Tandy, warn her to keep out of the investigation, but when the conference organizer and former Moostookalook resident Nola Ventress is the next victim, Liss can’t help going into sleuthing mode. Both the blogger and Nola have made quite a few enemies, so Liss won’t have an easy time identifying a clever killer.

Just like the Maine-ly Cozy authors, Dunnett (The Corpse Wore Tartan, 2010, etc.) provides a pleasant diversion with a wide choice of murder suspects for her heroine to investigate.