PAPER CUTS

A bookstore owner is framed for murder.

Nora Pennington, who owns Miracle Books in Miracle Springs, North Carolina, has a supportive circle of friends calling themselves The Secret, Book, and Scone Society. Her relationship with Sheriff Grant McCabe provides both strength and complications when she has a run-in with Kelly Walsh, her ex-husband Lawrence’s second wife. When Nora and her friends visit a new cafe in town, they meet owners Kirk and Val Walsh, who have an odd reaction to her, perhaps because of the burn scars she got in a car accident that still haunts her. But it turns out that they recognize her as Lawrence’s first wife; his current wife, Kelly, is Kirk’s sister, and they’ve come to town to help her since she’s dying of cancer. Kelly has a son, Tucker, who’s neurodivergent. When Nora discovers that Kelly was the pregnant other woman she briefly met before she left Lawrence and that Tucker is Lawrence’s son, she loses it, pushing Kelly aside just to get away. When Kelly is found dead of asphyxiation shortly afterward, Nora’s friends insist that she get a lawyer, since her relationship with the sheriff puts both of them in a tough position, and a new deputy assumes that Nora is guilty. Nora and her sleuthing friends learn that Lawrence has acquired other wives, another child, and a string of lovers while building his wealth through questionable business practices. Now he shows up in town because he wants to build a casino nearby. Kirk’s request that Nora evaluate some books that Tucker’s grandmother has left him adds still more complications when they turn out to be worth a small fortune. Through it all, Nora remains on the hook, and her continuing investigations put her in the sights of both the law and the killer.

Red herrings abound along with plenty of tips on choosing books.