Murder After Closing: A cozy bookshop whodunit with a clue-stealing cat, a grumpy police chief, and secrets between the stacks

About Murder After Closing: A cozy bookshop whodunit with a clue-stealing cat, a grumpy police chief, and secrets between the stacks

I bought a sleepy seaside bookshop to start over. I got a corpse under the poetry ladder instead. Welcome to Larkspur Harbor: the kind of town that sells handmade candles and smiles sweetly while hiding knives behind its back.

Now my shop is crawling with suspects, my cat Mo is stealing “souvenirs” from the crime scene, and Police Chief Hart is doing his best to keep me out of his investigation. He says I talk too much. He’s not wrong.

But I’m also not wrong. Because the little slip of paper Mo swiped from the victim’s pocket isn’t trash. It’s a breadcrumb.

And it leads to a trail of bookish, maddening clues hidden in plain sight: a coffee ring with a story, a security camera glitch at the worst minute, and a book dedication that isn’t romantic at all. It’s a message. One only a copyeditor would catch.

A jealous poet. A brittle coauthor. An event organizer with a résumé that doesn’t hold up.

A super-fan who knows the shop better than I do. Everyone had a reason to be in my store after closing. Someone had a reason to kill.

Chief Hart wants me to stop meddling before I make things worse. I want the truth before the town decides I’m the next problem to solve.