Part of Series
It’s a quiet morning at the Advocate until the mail brings shocking news: a formal obituary for Alpiner Elmer Nystrom. As far as anyone knows, Elmer is alive and well. But he hasn’t turned up for work, so Emma and her unstoppable House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, rush to the Nystrom home, where they find Elmer’s lifeless body in the henhouse, half buried under straw. Not only has he been murdered, but his obituary had been mailed before he died. Though Elmer was well liked by everyone, the same cannot be said of his standoffish wife or his son, the town’s new orthodontist. Rumors fly–straight into the office of the Advocate. Why did Dr. Nystrom’s new receptionist resign at the end of her first day? Why are the Nystroms’ neighbors so close-mouthed? Who mailed that prophetic obituary? With Sheriff Milo Dodge in the hospital, it’s up to Emma and Vida to get to the bottom of the tragedy. Alpiners love scandal, and with Elmer’s murder, they’ll get their fill.
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.
