Bake Sale Murder

In Meier's disjointed 13th Lucy Stone mystery (after 2005's New Year's Eve Murder ), the Tinker's Cove, Maine, newspaper reporter has a whole subdivision of peculiar neighbors around her once peaceful farmhouse, and anonymous letters are arriving at her office. The unknown penman alleges that the new football coach, Buck Burkhart, is condoning unsavory behavior by the high school's senior football players toward the junior players and the cheerleaders, one of whom is Lucy's daughter, Sara. But no one is talking or listening, as the coach launches his lackluster team into a victorious season. Then Lucy finds Burkhart's neighbor, one of her volunteer bakers, knifed to death in her kitchen. And what about the homeless man? The philandering veterinarian? The victim's bad-tempered husband? The author makes only a halfhearted effort to connect all the dots, while the one big break in the murders comes, unpleasantly and literally, through Lucy's dog, Libby. (Dec.)