Scones and Scoundrels: The Highland Bookshop Mystery Series, Book 2

The deaths of an author and a tourist pose complications for the operators of Yon Bonnie Books in MacRae’s lively follow-up to 2016’s Plaid and Plagiarism. The bookstore and café partners—motherly Janet Marsh, sharp ex-lawyer Tallie (Janet’s daughter), imperious Christine Robertson, and gifted baker Summer Jacobs—have their hands full when environmental author and former resident Daphne Wood returns to the Highland town of Inversgail with a long list of demands for her accommodations and her signings. Daphne alienates much of the town through her rude and cruel behavior as well as her fixation on an American tourist who died outside a local pub, so it is little surprise when her body is found. The bookshop investigators wonder whether her death might relate to that of the tourist, the disappearance of a high school teacher who moonlights as a photographer, and the members of a mysterious secret society. An array of neighbors, such as a clueless mystery writer who styles himself a supersleuth, adds color, humor, and even wisdom to the proceedings. Cozy fans are in for a treat. (Jan.)