Hometown Hardware Mystery

Perfect for fans of Kate Carlisle and Victoria Gilbert, when a body is found in a hardware store, will Dawna Carpenter's sleuthing measure up to find the killer? Recent sexagenarian widow Dawna Carpenter thought running her own hardware store after the death of her husband was hard enough. With her adult daughter, April, moving back into town, and Darlene, the annoying boutique owner next door to her shop poking around, Dawna has her hands full. But when she finds a dead man in the bathroom of her store, with a framing hammer by his side, she's in way over her head. The victim, Warren Highcastle, was a land developer who was looking to purchase the old theater in town to build a new hotel. Dawna and April, worried about the implications of the crime scene at the hardware store, put themselves on the case. They soon learn that Warren had made quite a few enemies in his short amount of time in town. As the suspect list starts growing, so too do the threats against Dawna and April. Can Dawna and April nail the killer before they strike again?

Silver bells ring out, but in the air there's a feeling of…murder.Pine Bluff, Oregon resembles a perfect cozy Christmas card. Sparkling Christmas trees line snowy main street. Wreaths, red ribbons, and colored lights adorn every door. Hardware store owner Dawna Carpenter is in a festive mood. She invites her elderly neighbor, Smitty, to join her and daughter April on the Christmas Light Tour, a trolley that takes guests through all the best decorated neighborhoods while they enjoy steaming mugs of hot cocoa and scrumptious treats.But when Smitty spies one of the homeowners dead-a macabre decoration in an otherwise merry display-the cheerful ride turns somber fast. Dawna notices the ghost of the deceased woman standing next to the display, clearly angry over her recent demise. As snow blankets the valley and her newest employee is implicated in the crime, it's up to Dawna to find out who's been naughty and who's been nice-before it's lights out for her, too. When Paula Charles isn't writing, you can find her reading and contemplating murder under the towering trees of the Pacific Northwest. She is the author of the Hometown Hardware Mystery series, as well as the Zen Goat Mysteries written as Janna Rollins, both cozy mysteries.Paula is a member of Sisters in Crime, the national chapter, the Guppies, and the Columbia River chapter. She lives in Washington state with her extremely patient husband and a gaggle of furry and feathered creatures.