A House to Die For: A Darby Farr Mystery

Doudera's appealing cozy debut introduces Darby Farr, a half-Asian San Diego realtor. On hearing her realtor aunt, Jane, is dying, Darby heads home to Hurricane Harbor, Maine, to help her aunt's assistant with Jane's last sale—the Fairview estate owned by old brother and sister friends of Darby's, Mark and Lucy Trimble. Bostonian Peyton Mayerson, the head of Pemberton Point Weddings, has made an impressive offer, but backup buyer Emerson Phipps, a prominent Boston surgeon, is sure he'll be Fairview's new owner. Before the multimillion-dollar sale can go through, someone bludgeons Phipps to death in the property's garden shed. Lucy, who's found hurt near the crime scene, becomes a suspect. While real estate matters slow the narrative in places, the author does a good job portraying Darby in her efforts to make peace with her childhood past and solve a murder on a picturesque Maine island. (Apr.)