Demise of a Devious Neighbor: River's Edge Cozy Mystery Book 2 (River's Edge Mystery Series)($9.99Value)

Description

Demise of a Devious Neighbor Melanie’s parents are dead, but she and her brother Ambrose can’t operate their farm because a cantankerous neighbor says her father signed an intent-to-sell contract for a price brother and sister know he would not agree to. Let alone do it without telling his heirs. Add to that that, someone is shooting fireworks at her pickup when she sits on the road and looks at the barn and house. When she and Ambrose get calls from Frost, who asks to meet them at their barn, Mel figures he wants to up his lo-ball offer for the farm to avoid next week’s court hearing on the legitimacy of Frost’s claim. Ambrose gets there first and finds neighbor Frost dead in the barn. To arriving deputy sheriff Granger, Ambrose, who has removed the knife from Frost’s body, seems the logical suspect. He bonds out, but Melanie fears the sheriff isn’t looking for the real killer. She starts asking questions. And she has many, starting with why the barn is fairly clean and doesn’t smell of the birds that like to roost there. Was someone using it? With the door shut, no one would have known. And who was shooting off fireworks in the nearby corn field? As she gardens, sells at the farmer’s market, and watches Mister Tibbs (her female terrier) pursue rabbits, Fourth of July approaches. Melanie still has no answers. She is furious when Ambrose is arrested for Frost’s murder, largely because of how he was holding the knife. Her promise, to the usually friendly Sheriff Gallagher, not to butt in goes onto the proverbial dung pile. She goes where her suspicions take her and continues to puzzle about whether someone had been using the barn surreptitiously. A surprise at the Fourth of July fireworks gives a lot of answers. Elaine L. Orr writes four mystery series. The twelve-book Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series is set at the Jersey shore, and  Behind the Walls was a finalist for the 2014 Chanticleer Mystery and MayhemAwards. The three-book River's Edge series takes place along the meandering Des Moines River, and Demise of a Devious Neighbor was a Chanticleer finalist in 2017. The Logland series, set in small-town Illinois, has three books. The Family History Mystery Series is set in the mountains of her home state, Maryland. The four-book series began with Least Trodden Ground , and introduced an ornery ghost in book two,  Unscheduled Murder Trip, which received an Indie B.R.A.G Medallion. Uncle Benjamin adds historical insight and a fair bit of humor.   Elaine  also writes plays andnovellas, including the one-act play, Common Ground published in 2015.Her novella, Biding Time , was one of five finalists in the National Press Club's first fiction contest, in 1993. Recent reflective fiction includes  Falling Into Place and In the Shadow of Light.   Elaine conducts presentations on electronic publishing and other writing-related topics. Nonfiction includes Writing When TIme is Scarce  and Words to WriteBy:Getting Your Thoughts on Paper . A member of Sisters in Crime, Elaine was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Maryland; she moved to the Midwest in 1994. Elaine graduated from the University of Dayton and the American University.She did some journalism coursework at the University of Maryland and has taken fiction courses from The Writer's Center in Bethesda, MD, the University of Iowa Summer Writing Festival, and Georgetown University's Continuing Education Program. Elaine is a regular attendee at what is now Prime Crime at the Columbia Club, held each October in Indianapolis.