Twice Sold Murder

Twice Sold Murder, Margaret Evans, Moonlight Mystery Press, 2014

Laura Kane is returning to her hometown of Raging Ford, Minnesota, after growing up with an aunt in Baltimore. The death of her parents, under mysterious circumstances, made the move to Baltimore necessary.

Laura plans to open a thrift store in town, and live in an apartment upstairs. A person might think that the residents of Raging Ford would descend on Laura en masse, and welcome her back home, but Harry's Rules (Harry is one of the three members of the Town Council) say that everyone has to basically wait their turn. In stocking her store, Laura buys a couple of pieces of furniture that belonged to a family from a nearby town who perished in an accident. The parents, and one identical twin, perished in the accident. Which twin survived, the "good" twin, or the sociopath?

Little by little, things get more and more mysterious for Laura. Jenna, a good friend from high school, is engaged and ecstatic. His name is Jeremy, and the best way to describe him is "creepy." He says that he grew up in Raging Ford, but there are too many holes in his story. Laura investigates the story of the family who perished, and is not very careful about leaving her laptop where customers can see what is on the screen. Not all of the customers are from Raging Ford, maybe one of them is the culprit. The store is broken into, and only those two pieces of furniture are taken. Encouraging Laura to continue her investigation into the deceased family is a mysterious cat who does not eat, and who only Laura can see.

First of a trilogy, this is a really good piece of writing. It's a pretty "quiet" story in that there are no hair-raising crises fro our plucky heroine (until the end). It's very easy to read, and it's the sort of story that can take place in any small town in America. It will certainly keep the reader's interest.