New Release— A Menacing Brew (A Kirkwood Clues Mystery) by Kate Fellowes

With the summer off, Amy is at loose ends.  Since her husband is busy with work and her son is at college, she reluctantly agrees to accompany her mom, Barbara, on a trip to visit an old college chum, Carl, who became a journalist.  Amy knows their long drive will be filled with too many of her mom’s stories about her personal Summer of Love, but she never expects they’ll find Carl dead in his basement practically the minute they arrive.  Things go from bad to worse when Barbara becomes the prime suspect in the crime, since she’ll inherit the dead man’s estate.

To clear Barbara’s name, she and Amy delve into Carl’s most recent assignment and discover a link to Kirkwood’s biggest employer, family-owned Stutger Brewery.  More than one skeleton lurks in the Stutger closet.  But are these old secrets still worth killing over? Or was Carl’s death motivated by an incident with more recent roots?

One thing’s for sure—Barbara and Amy are making few friends among locals with all their questions. As the brewery’s centennial celebration fast approaches, it’s time for Barbara and Amy to bring things to a head and unmask killers, past and present.

EXCERPT

     A crashing and banging came from the kitchen. Mom, moving around.

     "Didja find it?" she hollered. "I’ll bet a fuse blew, or a circuit tripped or somesuch."

     "I’ll bet," I muttered.

     Squeezing the flashlight, I headed down the shadowed hallway, like a modern-day gothic heroine, to find Mom.

     She wasn’t in the kitchen anymore.

     "Out here," she called from the enclosed back porch.

     "Would you please wait for me? If you wander around in the dark, you could fall and break something else," I said, joining her.

     "This must be the basement," she said, ignoring me to point at the dark open doorway leading into even more darkness. "Fuse box’ll be down there."

     I played the flashlight over the yawning pit and shuddered.

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