THE SILVER NEEDLE MURDER
by Laura Childs
The first annual Charleston Film Festival may be the last unless a clever killer is quickly unmasked.
The crew at the Indigo Tea Shop are feeling the heat, and not just from Charleston’s sultry summer. The pressure is on for owner Theodosia Browning, tea expert Drayton Conneley and pastry chef Haley Parker to stage a series of tea-inspired parties. Theodosia is delighted to be involved with the opening night gala at the recently renovated Belvedere Theater until well-known director Jordan Cole is shot dead as he makes his way to the stage. Theodosia, no stranger to murder (Dragonwell Dead, 2007, etc.), agrees to look into the problem for festival organizer Timothy Neville. She quickly discovers that Cole had a long series of spurned lovers, the last of whom may have been Neville’s granddaughter. Theodosia feels threatened herself when she falls into several spine-chilling traps arranged to warn her to stop sleuthing. There’ll be another murder and a night in a dangerous swamp before the killer is brought to justice.
The latest in Childs’s Tea Shop series is again a love letter to Charleston, tea and fine living, with the usual addition of recipes.