On Spine of Death

by Tamara Berry

Overview

2023 EDGAR AWARD NOMINEE, LILIAN JACKSON BRAUN PRIZE for Buried in a Good Book

"In 'Keystone Kops'–style scenes set around the morgue, a muddy mountain, and the hardware store, bones and books disappear and reappear…[On Spine of Death] is a quirky story for those who enjoy funny cozies."—Library Journal

Bestselling author Tess Harrow and her teenage daughter Gertrude have decided to make Winthrop their home. Their cabin is fixed up and now they're turning to the family hardware store that Tess inherited from her late grandfather into the town's first independent bookstore.

But when renovations unearth bones from a cold case and send them toppling—literally—onto Tess's head, the work comes to a grinding halt. With the whole town convinced that her grandfather was a serial killer, Tess has to call in a fellow horror author for reinforcements. Together, they'll come up with a perfect story to make all the clues fit…and solve a mystery more than thirty years in the making.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728248639
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	11/29/2022
Series:	By the Book Mysteries , #2
Pages:	408
Sales rank:	100,496
Product dimensions:	4.70(w) x 7.10(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Tamara Berry is the author of the Eleanor Wilde cozy mystery series and, as Lucy Gilmore, the Forever Home contemporary romance series. Also a freelance writer and editor, she has a bachelor’s degree in English Literature and a serious penchant for Nancy Drew novels. She lives in Bigfoot country (aka Eastern Washington) with her family and their menagerie. Find her online at www.tamaraberry.com.

Editorial Reviews

"Berry’s sequel to Buried in a Good Book is a quirky story for those who enjoy funny cozies." — Library Journal

"A prospective bookstore owner learns that renovations can be murder…juggling one snarky sheriff, one junior G-man, and three skeletons [attempts to overwhelm] Berry’s seasoned heroine." — Kirkus Reviews

"This cozy mystery zips along at a fast pace, filled with twists and turns and red herrings aplenty, with never a dull moment... With an entertaining mixture of humour and mystery, nonstop action and a cast of quirky characters, this will appeal to fans of fun, bookish cozy mysteries." — Mystery and Suspense

"Funny, smart and moving." — Criminal Element

From the Publisher

07/15/2022

Thriller writer Tess Harrow is in the cellar of her grandfather's dilapidated hardware store when her daughter takes a sledge hammer to the floor above, and bones rain down on Tess's head. Once again, Tess is at the center of a crime scene; this time, she has to prove that her grandfather was not a killer. But the bones are stolen from the morgue before she can bring in a friend, Peter, who is an expert on hatchets (the weapon used on the old bones). Peter does point out that the whole story of bones and missing women reminds him of the plot of an old book set in a town a little too reminiscent of Winthrop. Tess is afraid to tell the sheriff about that book though, because his older sister was one of the local women who disappeared. In "Keystone Kops"—style scenes set around the morgue, a muddy mountain, and the hardware store, bones and books disappear and reappear as FBI agents and Tess hunt for a killer. VERDICT Berry's sequel to Buried in a Good Book is a quirky story for those who enjoy funny cozies.—Lesa Holstine

Library Journal

2022-10-27
A prospective bookstore owner learns that renovations can be murder.

In the cozy world, everyone has a plan until she discovers a set of bones under the floorboards. But mystery author Tess Harrow, who’s always been an overachiever, unearths two complete human skeletons while turning her grandad’s old hardware store into The Paper Trail, a bookshop she plans to open in her new Wild West–kitsch–filled hometown of Winthrop, Washington. A police investigation of the premises, even one led by handsome Sheriff Victor Boyd, is the last thing Tess needs right now, especially since she’s just hired even handsomer handyman Jared Wilson to help complete the project. Fortunately, Jared isn’t really a handyman—he’s an undercover FBI agent sent to help Nicki Nickerson, a fellow fed working undercover as the town’s librarian—so he doesn’t have to actually do any manual labor. Unfortunately, Jared’s so dumb that he can’t even remember that his cover name is Jared Wright, and he threatens to blow the entire operation every time he introduces himself. Boyd’s inquiry stalls until a friend shows Tess a copy of Let Sleeping Dogs Lie, a mystery she blurbed but never read, which describes a set of murders in the fictional town of Heythrop that mirror her current puzzle with disturbing accuracy—except that in Heythrop, there were three sets of bones. Is there a third corpse yet to be disinterred? Will Jared’s doglike devotion to her, along with his hot bod, destabilize the relationship Tess is just beginning to build with sarcastic Victor? One never knows, does one?

Juggling one snarky sheriff, one junior G-man, and three skeletons proves a bit much even for Berry’s seasoned heroine.

Kirkus Reviews