Last Word

Winter Snow writes obituaries for the residents of Ridgefield, Connecticut. Familiar with grief herself, she sees the work as a way of comforting others who have been where she has been. Obituaries are for the dead, though, so she is intrigued when the very much alive Leocadia Arlington asks her to write one by the end of the week. Soon afterward, Winter finds Mrs. Arlington dead.

Officer Kip Michaels and his relentless partner, Tom Bellini, make it plain that Winter is a suspect. Having written an obituary for someone who had not yet died certainly looks bad. Winter knows she is innocent, and she throws herself into finding the real killer, hoping to bring some peace to Mrs. Arlington and to herself.

Her digging reveals that Mrs. Arlington had been working on a revealing memoir, and it has gone missing. That makes Winter doubt the death was random, whether accident or otherwise. She has help from her foodie Uncle Richard, her wise octogenarian neighbor Horace, her best friend Scoop, and Diva, the Great Pyrenees puppy she inherited from Mrs. Arlington. Together they must find the killer before the next obituary Winter writes is her own.

This is a debut cozy mystery.