Bookclubbed to Death

When a literary critic is found bludgeoned to death with a copy of The Complete Works of Agatha Christie, Michigan bookstore owner, author, and amateur sleuth Samantha Washington discovers there is such a thing as bad publicity in Agatha Award finalist V.M. Burns’ latest Mystery Bookshop novel.

After the local library in North Harbor, Michigan, is flooded in a storm, Sam offers her bookstore as a new venue for the Mystery Mavens Book Club. Unfortunately, she immediately runs afoul of the club leader, Delia Marshall, a book reviewer who can make or break careers--something Sam can ill afford with her debut historical mystery soon to be published. But the next morning, Sam opens her shop to find the unpleasant woman dead on the floor, bashed with a heavy--apparently lethal--tome: the Complete Works of Agatha Christie. While Sam is busy writing her latest British historical mystery in which the queen mother is suspected in the murder of a London Times correspondent, a pair of ambitious cops suspect Sam of the real-life crime. When she gathers Nano Jo and their friends from the Shady Acres Retirement Village to review the case, they discover every one of the Mavens had a motive. With her novel about to hit the stores, Sam must find out who clubbed Delia before a judge throws the book at her . . .

V.M. Burns is the Agatha Award nominated author of screenplays, children’s books, and cozy mysteries, including the Baker Street Mysteries, the Mystery Bookshop series, the Dog Club Mysteries, and the RJ Franklin Mysteries. Born and raised in South Bend, Indiana, she currently resides in Georgia just outside Chattanooga with her poodles. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and a lifetime member of Sisters in Crime. She can be found online at VMBurns.com.