About the Book

Our first cozy mystery with gothic undertones…

In a picturesque Iowa town, a widow’s dream of quiet living is shattered when her dog discovers a corpse, pulling her into a web of secrets where every neighbor is a suspect and every garden hides a clue. 

After the death of her husband, Maggie Stone leaves Southern California and returns to her Iowa roots, hoping for peace in the small town of Winslow. She settles into a quaint cottage with her golden retriever, Lily, only to find her idyllic vision shattered by a loose shutter on the vacant Tudor next door—and by the unsettling mystery that begins to unfold.

What starts as a quest to fix a noisy shutter turns into a chilling discovery: Lily unearths a shallow grave in the neighbor’s garden. The victim appears to be Larry Holmes, the absent owner of the Tudor. As police swarm the neighborhood, Maggie is drawn into the investigation, navigating a web of secrets among her quirky neighbors—Brenda, the domineering social queen; Thorvald, the enigmatic newcomer with a romantic obsession; and Hollister, a widower with a shadowy past and unexpected charm.

When a second body surfaces in the park and incriminating love letters point to Thorvald, suspicion deepens. But Maggie’s instincts—and Lily’s keen nose—suggest a more sinister truth lurking behind Brenda’s saccharine smile. As Maggie digs for answers (sometimes literally), she uncovers a decades-old trail of jealousy, betrayal, and murder that stretches far beyond her quiet street.

With humor, suspense, and a sharp eye for small-town dynamics, this cozy mystery explores what happens when “Iowa nice” collides with dark secrets—and how one determined woman and her loyal dog refuse to let a killer go free.