In Mary Daheim's latest Bed-and-Breakfast mystery, Judith and Renie get stalled on a train ride to Boston, and they're about to go nowhere fast, because a body just turned up.
Judith's worst nightmare comes true when Vivian Flynn, her husband's first wife, moves two doors down from the Hillside Manor. She brings along her new husband, former minor league baseball player Billy 'Blunder' Buss, who is many years her junior. But as the B&B business is going well and Vivian isn't causing any problems for the Flynns, Judith adjusts to the situation. The idyll soon comes apart when Vivian, now mysteriously wealthy, announces her plans to extensively add on to the small house and also purchase the corner property. Residents are up in arms and vow to fight the project to the death. But Vivian's past catches up with her when Frankie Buss comes to town. It seems that Bill and Frankie's late father, Porter Winslow Buss, was married to Vivian for six months before he died at the age of 88. Vivian inherited most of his wealth and she also acquired Billy, who she promptly married after a brief period of mourning. Now Frankie is contesting the will and trying to cut a deal with Vivian and Billy. Naturally, Frankie and his wife check into Hillside Manor. And naturally, somebody gets killed.
Sheriff Joanna Brady must solve two perplexing cases that may be tied together in New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance's thrilling tale of suspense that brings to life Arizona's Cochise County and the desert Southwest in all its beauty and mystery. An old woman, a hoarder, is dying of emphysema in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. In cleaning out her house, her daughter, Liza Machett, discovers a fortune in hundred dollar bills hidden in the tall stacks of books and magazines that crowd every corner. Tracing the money's origins will take Liza on a journey that will end in Cochise County, where Sheriff Joanna Brady is embroiled in a personal mystery of her own. A man she considers a family friend is found dead at the bottom of a hole in a limestone cavern near Bisbee. And now there is the mystery of Liza and the money. Are the two disparate cases connected? It's up to Joanna to find out.