The Mystery Book for October 14

Summary:

Claire Malloy runs a bookstore in the normally quiet college town of Farberville, Arkansas – an enterprise which provides the verging-on-meager living for her and her deeply sarcastic teenage daughter Caron. So when emergency work forces Claire and Caron to abandon their apartment for a few weeks, they are in no financial position to put themselves up in style and Claire is thrilled to accept a customer’s offer to let them stay at her well-stocked, well-equipped palatial home while she is traveling.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. No sooner do Claire and Caron ensconce themselves than disquieting events start to occur – dubious people show up looking for the ‘traveling’ owner of the house; the owner herself turns out not to be who she claimed and is now seemingly on the run; and a dead body keeps turning up – and subsequently disappearing – around the grounds of the house.