Carolyn hates small towns. She grew up in a small town where everybody knew that her father, the police chief, was arrested for taking bribes.
When Carolyn drives into a small Oregon coastal town, she’s only going to spend 45 minutes signing legal papers that’ll allow the attorney to sell her inheritance, her aunt’s bookstore. After all, she’s got a paralegal job in glamorous San Francisco, where her love of designer handbags will fit in perfectly.
But the attorney tells her first she’s got to read her aunt’s letter stored in the bookstore. After she roars over to get the letter, she finds Ned, the town’s illustrious mayor and landlord, killed by a ten-pound dictionary.
After Carolyn reads her aunt’s handwritten letter, she realizes if she clears her aunt’s legacy, she can do her part to restore her family’s history in this town.
To solve the murder and start her new life in San Francisco, Carolyn must overcome her black-and-white judgement of her father’s worst moment of weakness, uncover the secret history of the town, and embrace the intimacy of the quirky community.
The Muddy Shoes Murder is a part of the Seagull Town Murders, a 10-book cozy mystery series.
Why Write This Story
It’s incredibly fun to write a mystery, because it’s all about providing readers with a puzzle.
The cozy series is set in a fictional bookstore in a fictional small-town in Oregon, but it’s based on Astoria, Oregon, a place rich in history. I wanted the setting of my books to be realistic, so I’ve drawn on my years of research and travel around my home state of Oregon. Still, Carolyn’s town had to be fictitious, because one can’t go around writing stories of fictional people murdered in the real town. It’s just not proper.
