Amanda Flower: Maid of Murder

Flower s breezy debut introduces a quirky heroine—India Hayes, a librarian at Martin College in Stripling, Ohio, who s also an artist. India agrees, yet again, to be a bridesmaid, this time for her childhood friend, Olivia Blocken, for whom her brother, Mark, an assistant professor at Martin, still carries a torch. After Olivia left Stripling for college elsewhere, Mark suffered a breakdown and buried himself in mathematics. Not wanting to upset Mark, India doesn t tell him she s a bridesmaid in his lost love s wedding. When someone pushes Olivia to her death in the college fountain and Mark becomes the most likely murder suspect, India turns amateur sleuth in an effort to prove her brother s innocence. Warring cats and distinctive characters, like India s everything Irish landlady and her bizarre 60s activist parents, will appeal to cozy fans.