Oyster Bay, North Carolina, has changed Olivia Limoges. When she arrived a few years ago, people referred to her as “the grouchiest woman on the entire North Carolina coast.” Now she’s a fixture of this tight-knit community who is about to open a new restaurant with her long-lost half-brother, Hudson. She also leads the Bayside Book Writers group and is developing an meaningful relationship with the Chief of Police, Sawyer Rawlings. Although it’s hectic, the refined Olivia is content with the life that she has created, especially with the presence of her attentive poodle, Captain Haviland.
In the midst of planning menus, reworking drafts about Ramses the Great and his courtesan, Kamila, and helping Hudson and his wife, Kim, prepare for a new child, the unthinkable strikes Oyster Bay. Nick Plumley, a bestselling author who has just moved to the seaside town is found (by none other than Olivia) murdered. His book, The Barbed Wire Flower, described a horrifying scene at the nearby New Bern POW Camp in which two German prisoners escape after killing one of the guards; Plumley had hoped to do research along the coast for a sequel. As Olivia and the Bayside Book Writers help Chief Rawlings search for the reasons why someone would want the well-known writer dead, they discover a more sinister side to Plumley and his associates. Plumley’s murder also exposes long-buried secrets about one of their own that stun Olivia and Oyster Bay.
Check the availability of this title in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog, or start with the first two “Books by the Bay” mysteries, A Killer Plot and A Deadly Cliché.
Labor Day is approaching, and Oyster Bay, North Carolina, is bustling in preparation for a busy extended weekend. A popular tourist destination, the quaint village needs a spree of burglaries about as much as it needs a hurricane. Unfortunately, both are making their presence known. When the burglaries turn deadly, Olivia Limoges springs into action. A wealthy woman who owns about half of the town and genuinely cares for its citizens, she does not want Oyster Bay to get the reputation of being unsafe (even if it does weather the occasional storm). As a friend, fellow member of the Bayside Book Writers, and potential love interest of Sawyer Rawlings, Oyster Bay’s chief of police, Olivia has an inside source to the details of murders and robberies. Enlisting the help of her fellow writers and beloved poodle, Captain Haviland, Olivia realizes that the perpetrators leave clues in the form of clichés. Her quick wit will come in handy when she comes face-to-face with the criminals.