Preserved to Death: A Small Town Bed and Breakfast Cozy Mystery with Cat (The Buttercup Inn Mysteries Book 5)
By Maisy Marple
When justice fails, sometimes murder finds a way.
At the Buttercup Inn’s Farm-to-Table Weekend, innkeeper Rosie Pemberton is determined to prove her establishment is more than Vermont’s most notorious crime scene. But when competitive jam maker Marlene Hutchfield dies at breakfast after eating Rosie’s strawberry preserves, the inn’s deadly reputation strikes again. The autopsy reveals a shocking twist: ground glass mixed into the jam, turning a wholesome breakfast into a weapon of revenge.
As the investigation unfolds, dark secrets emerge about Marlene’s empire built on fraud and cruelty. Food blogger Roger Thornbury seems particularly interested in the victim’s shady past, carrying a notebook filled with twenty years of meticulous research. When the police discover his daughter was permanently disabled by Marlene’s tainted preserves decades ago, Roger’s presence at the inn takes on sinister significance. Everyone had access to the kitchen during Friday night’s cooking event, but only one person had both motive and opportunity to grind glass from a broken jar into deadly powder.
In this fifth Buttercup Inn mystery, Rosie must navigate a web of justified rage and calculated revenge, where victims become killers and the line between justice and murder blurs beyond recognition. As the truth emerges about a father’s desperate act and a community’s complicit silence, Rosie faces her hardest question yet: when the law fails to protect the innocent, can murder ever be justified? A bittersweet tale of redemption and revenge that will leave readers questioning their own moral compass.
When justice fails, sometimes murder finds a way.
At the Buttercup Inn’s Farm-to-Table Weekend, innkeeper Rosie Pemberton is determined to prove her establishment is more than Vermont’s most notorious crime scene. But when competitive jam maker Marlene Hutchfield dies at breakfast after eating Rosie’s strawberry preserves, the inn’s deadly reputation strikes again. The autopsy reveals a shocking twist: ground glass mixed into the jam, turning a wholesome breakfast into a weapon of revenge.
As the investigation unfolds, dark secrets emerge about Marlene’s empire built on fraud and cruelty. Food blogger Roger Thornbury seems particularly interested in the victim’s shady past, carrying a notebook filled with twenty years of meticulous research. When the police discover his daughter was permanently disabled by Marlene’s tainted preserves decades ago, Roger’s presence at the inn takes on sinister significance. Everyone had access to the kitchen during Friday night’s cooking event, but only one person had both motive and opportunity to grind glass from a broken jar into deadly powder.
In this fifth Buttercup Inn mystery, Rosie must navigate a web of justified rage and calculated revenge, where victims become killers and the line between justice and murder blurs beyond recognition. As the truth emerges about a father’s desperate act and a community’s complicit silence, Rosie faces her hardest question yet: when the law fails to protect the innocent, can murder ever be justified? A bittersweet tale of redemption and revenge that will leave readers questioning their own moral compass.