Moonshine Mystery

As Daisy McGovern knows all too well, it isn't easy being a young, small-town waitress at a local diner in Virginia. It becomes even harder as she's trying to stitch her life back together and salvage her job by converting the diner into a bakery. She's preoccupied with snickerdoodles and cinnamon buns, trying to feed a group of geocachers in town, when a mysterious robbery occurs in the back room and one of the thieves ends up dead with a chef's knife in his chest. With the sheriff out of town, Daisy, distrustful of the cop left in charge, takes it upon herself to follow up on clues and find out who the robber was and why he was there. While she's investigating, she meets a handsome geocacher and is commissioned to bake a cake for the unlikely wedding of one of the Balsam boys, at the same time trying to avoid the charms of his moonshine-brewing brother. When a second murder occurs, Daisy finds herself in a twisted game of cat and mouse that takes her from secretive nip joints overflowing with moonshine to weathered Appalachian mountaintops overflowing with history and guns. She must figure out who is the murderer and how her bakery is involved before she becomes the next victim. A Nip of Murder is the second entry in this charming series filled with eccentric characters, red herrings, and, of course, moonshine! Carol Miller hits all the right notes, creating a unique mystery that will delight as well as surprise.

Secrets, lies, and a splash of moonshine: a classic country house whodunit with a distinctly Southern twist. After losing her husband and her home, small-town girl Daisy McGovern moves in with her invalid mother at an old inn in sleepy southwestern Virginia. When the inn's eccentric proprietor, Aunt Emily, decides to throw a weekend party for a small group of friends and neighbors, everybody is excited-until a winter storm approaches and one of the guests is crushed by an antique bookcase during the night. At first, the death appears to be an accident. But as the storm worsens and the sheriff is unable to reach them, suspicion slowly grows. Was it murder? After the inn loses power and a second death occurs, it's clear to Daisy that one among them is a killer. But who? The young, new, secretive maid? The antique-peddling pair of spinster sisters? Her not-so-welcome in-laws? The peculiar house-hunting couple? The supposedly stranded motorist? With no way to leave and no way to get help, Daisy's only contacts to the outside world are her best friend Beulah and the always charming (and equally troublesome) moonshiner, Rick Balsam. Trapped with a clever and seemingly undetectable murderer, she must unravel the truth before the party ends with her funeral.

Carol Miller makes a memorable debut in Murder and Moonshine, the first of an intriguing new mystery series. All small towns have secrets---and plenty of them---as every small-town waitress knows. Daisy is no different. A young, recently separated waitress at H & P's Diner in sleepy southwestern Virginia, she hears more than her fair share of neighborhood gossip while serving plates of hash and peach cobbler. But when a reclusive old man shows up at the diner one day, only to drop dead a few minutes later, Daisy quickly learns that some secrets are more dangerous to keep than others---especially when there are money and moonshine involved. The man's death was suspicious, and no longer sure who she can trust, Daisy turns sleuth while also seeking to protect her sick mother and keeping a handle on Aunt Emily, her goading, trigger-happy landlord. Caught between whiskey and guns, a handsome ATF agent and a moonshine-brewing sweet talker, and a painful past and a dangerous present, Daisy has her work cut out for her. There's trouble brewing in her small town, and before it passes, many secrets will come to light.