A Sticky Situation (A Sugar Grove Mystery)

A Sticky Situation (A Sugar Grove Mystery)

The author of  Maple Mayhem  returns to Sugar Grove, New Hampshire ,  where the Greene family—including Dani's irksome Aunt Hazel—are busy preparing for the annual Maple Festival. But nothing kills the festive spirit like murder…   Aunt Hazel isn’t exactly sweet, but she’s not the only one putting syrup maker Dani in a sour mood. Her family is trying to help renovate the town’s Opera House, but their contractor Russ Collins seems to specialize in finely crafted excuses. And his latest one is killer.   In the Opera House basement, Russ uncovers the remains of Spooner Duffy, a charming drifter thought to have skipped town decades ago with a hefty sum of the town’s money. Tapping into some unpleasant memories, Spooner’s bones also threaten to reveal a murderer’s secret, and now it’s up to Dani to catch a killer before the town is stuck with a deadly reputation.  Recipes included! Praise for the Sugar Grove Mysteries “A sticky series that'll have you reaching for the maple syrup.”— Fresh Fiction “Delightful and funny…with a great cast of characters.”—Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author   “Had my inner amateur sleuth working overtime.”— Cozy Mystery Book Reviews   Jessie Crockett is the national bestselling author of Maple Mayhem and Drizzled with Death in the Sugar Grove Mystery series. As a nearly lifelong resident of the Granite State, Jessie naturally adores black flies, 98 percent humidity, killing frosts in August, and snowbanks taller than the average grandmother. When not working on her next murderous adventure, she combs the beach, designs bento lunches, and throws parties. She delights in mentoring young writers at local schools. Jessie lives with her dark and mysterious husband and exuberant children in a village so small, many other New Hampshire residents have never heard of it. Acknowledgments One I knew there was trouble when Celadon sought me out in the sugar bush. Usually she sends one of her children to find me in the woods, preferring her fuzzy slippers to snow boots. My sister is generally considered a handsome woman but this could not be said as she waddled toward me through the snow. She knows to use snowshoes but in her haste must have forgotten them. Her earmuffs lopsidedly clung to her head for dear life and her scarf dragged behind her like a leash that lost its dog. By the time she got to me she was out of breath and had to reach out her hands to steady herself on a tree. Just looking at her I felt panic rising. “Who’s hurt?” I imagined my grandfather slumped in his chair, something vital burst in his brain or my brother, Loden, clutching at a hand short a couple of fingers. Celadon shook her head. “Hazel.” And with that one word the joy sucked out of my day like the air from a plane in a suspense movie when a mad bomber blows a hole in the side. As a sugar maker, I love the early spring. Those four to six weeks every year when the days are relatively warm and the nights are still cold. My whole family waits for this period when the sap runs like most families anticipate an annual vacation at a beach house. And when I say the whole family, I mean the whole family. The Greene family is a big one and has a vast array of members, most of whom manage to find their way back to Sugar Grove at some point while the sap is running. You can never be sure when Aunt Peridot or Cousin Moss will descend on us but you know it will happen. Like flu season, its course trends and you note the signs with trepidation. But my grandfather’s sister Hazel and her granddaughter Jade were sure to appear every year in time for the Sugar Grove Maple Festival. Their exact arrival date is always a surprise but they never fail to be around for the festival weekend. The festival is the highlight of the year in town and so naturally, that was when they would visit. It was more fun and less work and for all the years her age was right, Jade entered and won the Miss Maple competition. Now that she is beyond competition age and runs her own pageant coaching business she still makes time to come every year. Her days as Miss Maple may be behind her but she still reminds us every time we see her that she won over and over and Celadon and I never even entered. “When?” “She’ll be here in fifteen minutes. She hired a car to drive her up.” Of course she did. I wasn’t sure why she came every year to participate in sugaring since it is, at its heart, a do-it-yourself kind of thing. Our aunt has a policy of never doing for yourself what you can get others to do for you and she has taught her granddaughter to approach life in the same manner. It would never occur to any of the rest of us to hire a car. There’s a perfectly good bus that runs from Boston to Concord, NH, where any one of us would have unhappily picked them up from the station. But Hazel didn’t like public transport and nothing was ever good enough for her granddaughter Jade, as she was quick to point out to anyone within earshot. “Did y