Saks & Violins

Bestselling author Mary Daheim turns up the volume in her latest Bed-and-Breakfast mystery when indomitable heroine Judith McMonigle Flynn tries to extend a helping hand to a pesky new neighbor -- and ends up with a corpse underfoot while she and cousin Renie cope with . . .

Hard times and sour notes have hit the cousins in both the B&B and the graphic design business. To make matters worse, Renie's up to her latest eyebrow wax in debt, due to overzealous spending on clothes on their recent trip to San Francisco. And in the house that Herself -- Judith's nemesis and hubby Joe's ex-wife -- has rented out, there dwells a symphony violinist whose practice of outdoor practicing au naturel is driving the neighbors out of the cozy cul-de-sac and into sound-proof rooms. In fact, they swear they'd like to kill the nude, rude Rudi.

No such luck. The only buffer zone from the in-the-buff violinist is the Rankerses' hedge. Instead of Rudi taking a final bow with his damnable bow, it's his larger-than-life mentor, Dolph Kluger, who meets death, not by getting entangled in the lethal laurel, but from ingesting ruthless rhubarb.

To add to the musical mess, Rudi's valuable violin bow goes missing, Renie's useless credit cards are stolen, a headless horseman rides through somebody's past, and several suspects seem to be on the brink of bonkersville. Judith has to be extra careful with these lyrical loonies or somebody will be playing her funeral march before the killer bows out.

This is #22 in A Bed-And-Breakfast Mystery.