The book of candlelight

The third book in the Secret, Book, and Scone Society series serves up an appetizing dish for mystery lovers who enjoy books about bookstores, small towns, and female friends. The unrelenting spring rain in Miracle Springs, a small town in North Carolina, has brought increased business to Nora Pennington's bookstore. To replenish her stock of shelf enhancers, Nora visits a local flea market, where she purchases a pottery piece created by a man known as Cherokee Danny. The next day, Nora discovers Danny's body in the churning waters of the Miracle River near a rock painted with a symbol of a red cardinal. Nora enlists the help of three women who are fellow members of the Secret, Book, and Scone Society to help her catch Danny's killer. When another body is found near the river and an old diary casts suspicion on the new owners of the town's inn, Nora works with the sheriff to trap the killer into confessing. The ending ties up several subplots.

In Adams's delightful third Secret, Book, and Scone Society mystery (after 2018's The Whispered Word), Nora Pennington, the owner of Miracle Books in Miracle Springs, N.C., spots the body of Cherokee Danny, a potter she met the day before at the local flea market, floating in the town's river, which recent rains have swollen. Danny evidently drowned, but Nora and Sheriff Grant McCabe suspect foul play. Meanwhile, remodeling by innkeepers Louisa "Lou" Simmons and Patty Meacham turns up more than one secret hiding place in the old inn, including a diary kept by an ancestor of Lou more than a century ago. Drawings in the diary of red birds, besides suggesting a link between the past and the present, offer clues to information worth killing for. When a second body is found, Nora knows a killer is loose and lays a trap Sheriff McCabe reluctantly agrees to participate in. A guest stranded at the inn by the wet weather, the charming Sheldon Vega, provides part-time help at the bookstore and more. Adams has a knack for creating endearingly imperfect characters. Cozy fans will be well satisfied. Agent: Jessica Faust, BookEnds Literary. (Feb.)