Nine Lives to Die by Rita Mae Brown, New in Bookstores during June 2014

Today's new hardcover mystery title, scheduled to be published during June 2014 by Bantam, is Nine Lives to Die by Rita Mae Brown.

For a list of more new hardcover mysteries published this month, visit our New Mysteries page for June 2014. For new paperback mysteries, visit The Mystery Bookshelf where a selection of June 2014 mysteries, novels of suspense, and thrillers are shelved.

— ♦ —

Nine Lives to Die
Rita Mae Brown
Series: Mrs. Murphy (23rd)

Winter has come to Crozet, Virginia, bringing with it a fresh blanket of snow. Harry and her husband, Fair, are hip deep in their usual end-of-the-year activities: distributing food to needy residents, and shopping for outfits for the Silver Linings youth organization’s annual fundraising gala. But buried beneath the white stuff are dark secrets from Crozet’s past — and Harry and her posse of pet detectives are determined to sniff them out.

Two Silver Linings mentors have been found dead in suspicious circumstances. If that weren’t enough to chill the bones of the locals, a pair of severed human fingers has turned up in a pencil jar in the bookkeeper’s office at St. Cyril’s church. What does this grisly display have to do with the mysterious disappearance of Harry’s voluptuous high school Latin teacher, a quarter of a century ago? Maybe nothing. But when the animals make another gruesome discovery in the woods behind Harry’s farm, it becomes clear that terrible crimes have been committed in Crozet — and somebody’s gone to great lengths to cover them up. It’s time to stop shoveling snow and start digging for clues.

The truth will be revealed. A cold case will be solved. And a twenty-five-year-old love triangle is about to get untangled. The weather outside may be frightful, but Harry and her four-legged friends refuse to be spooked off the case.