May Day by Jess Loury is the 1st in her Murder-By-Month series of cozy mysteries starring an amateur sleuth who's a big-city woman moved to a small-town with what's probably a disproportionately high per-capita murder rate, all things considered, free courtesy of publisher Llewellyn's Midnight Ink imprint, which also gave us the
2nd in series last summer.
Currently free @
Amazon UK, likely to drop in the
main store. May or may not show up elsewhere, as last month Llewellyn put all their Midnight Ink offering in almost all the stores, but their freebie month before it stayed Amazon-only.
Perhaps they're doing it to test follow-up sales or somesuch, in which case I will mention that Llywellyn is non-Agency (at least from a Canadian perspective) and their books can be additionally discounted with applicable coupons in a store which supports such.
Description
Minneapolitan Mira James has been taking it easy since college graduation--too easy. Due to a dead-end job and a cheating boyfriend, the Twin Cities have lost their charm, and Mira decides to begin a new life in rural Battle Lake. Right away she is offered jobs as an assistant librarian and part-time reporter, and falls into an unexpected romance with a guy who seems to be the perfect man until he turns up dead between the reference stacks her tenth day on the job.
Anxious to learn more about the man who had briefly stolen her heart, Mira delves into the hidden mysteries of Battle Lake, including a old land deed with ancient Ojibwe secrets, an obscure octogenarian crowd with freaky social lives, and a handful of thirtysomething high school buddies who hold bitter, decades-old grudges. Mira soon discovers that unknown dangers are concealed under the polite exterior of this quirky small town, and revenge is a tator-tot hotdish best served cold.
A hip, humorous, and gripping account of small-town murder, this novel is the first in a series of cozies featuring Mira James, an urban woman with rural Minnesota roots.