Part of Series
There’s no “fun” in “fund-raiser” for Judith McMonigle Flynn when she donates an overnight stay at Hillside Manor for the parish school’s annual auction—not when the pricey winning bid goes to the persnickety Paine family. Dinner is included—if Judith can sort through the endless allergies and aversions of the painfully picky Paines. The last thing she needs is another B&B guest who checks out permanently. Thankfully, her husband, Joe, is home early. His latest surveillance job has just ended abruptly with a .38 Smith & Wesson blowing away the insurance fraud suspect. Unfortunately, the gun belongs to Joe, who finds himself in a jail cell as a murder suspect while Judith tries to find what’s left of her mind—and the real killer. But Joe’s dilemma and the unbearable Paines aren’t Judith’s only problems. Her cantankerous mother, Gertrude, has agreed to let a wealthy parishioner stable a horse in her toolshed apartment; cousin Renie is trying to force-feed her loathsome Shrimp Dump recipe to the parish cookbook fundraising committee; and neighbor Arlene Rankers wants to know why some parish schoolkids, including her grandson, are sick after the weekly hamburger lunch. Judith figures she’s already got way too much on her plate, so what else could possibly go wrong? On the other hand, at Hillside Manor, what can possibly go right?
Author
Seattle native Mary Richardson Daheim has been fascinated by story-telling since early childhood. She first listened, then read, and finally began to write her own fiction when she was ten. A journalism major at the University of Washington, she was the first female editor of The Daily where she attracted national attention with her editorial stance against bigotry. After getting her B.A., she worked in newspapers and public relations, but in her spare time she tried her hand at novels. In 1983, Daheim’s first historical romance was published, followed by a half-dozen more before she switched genres to her original fictional love, mysteries. Just Desserts and Fowl Prey, the first books of thirty in the Bed-and-Breakfast series were released in 1991. A year later, the Emma Lord series made its debut with The Alpine Advocate. Daheim has also written several short stories for mystery anthologies and magazines. Married to professor emeritus and playwright David Daheim, the couple lives in Seattle and has three grown daughters. She has been an Agatha Award nominee, winner of the 2000 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Achievement Award, and her mysteries regularly make the USA Today bestseller list and the New York Times top thirty.
