The Wedding Plot: A Mercy Carr Mystery

by Paula Munier

Overview

The Wedding Plot, USA Today bestselling author Paula Munier's fourth Mercy Carr mystery, finds Mercy and Elvis at a deadly Vermont wedding.

Love never dies a natural death…

When Mercy’s grandmother Patience marries her longtime beau Claude Renault at the five-star Lady’s Slipper Inn, it promises to be the destination wedding of the year. Just as the four-day extravaganza is due to begin, the inn’s spa director Bodhi St. George disappears—and Mercy’s mother Grace sends Mercy and Elvis to find him. But what they discover instead is a stranger skewered by a pitchfork in the barn on the goat farm where St. George lived.

As Mercy tries to figure out who the victim is and where St. George is hiding, the bride and groom’s estranged relations gather for the first of the pre-wedding festivities. Long-buried rivalries and resentments surface—and Mercy realizes that they’re all keeping secrets that could tear both families apart. When Elvis interrupts the escalating melodrama to alert Mercy to an intruder on the estate, she finds a wounded St. George in the cottage where she and Troy are staying. St. George is not who he says he is—but when he escapes from the hospital and disappears again, Mercy thinks he’s gone for good. With the wedding imminent and the families at each other’s throats, she decides finding St. George will have to wait.

The big day arrives—but the danger is far from over. With the families and the festivities still under threat, it’s up to Mercy and Elvis together with Troy and Susie Bear to stop the killer and save the bride and groom—before death do they part.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250378705
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/19/2022
Series:	Mercy Carr Series , #4
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	255,384
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

PAULA MUNIER is the USA TODAY bestselling author of the Mercy Carr mysteries. A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search also won a Dogwise Award. The Hiding Place and The Wedding Plot both appeared on several “Best Of” lists. HOME AT NIGHT, the fifth book in the series, was inspired by her volunteer work as a Natural Resources Steward of New Hampshire. Along with her love of nature, Paula credits the hero dogs of Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs, and a deep affection for New England as her series’ major influences. A literary agent by day, she’s also written three popular books on writing: Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, and Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as Happier Every Day and the memoir Fixing Freddie: The True Story of a Boy, a Mom, and a Very, Very Bad Beagle. She lives in New England with her family and Bear the Newfoundland-retriever rescue, Bliss the Great Pyrenees-Australian cattle dog rescue, pandemic puppy Blondie, a Malinois rescue (much like Elvis in her books), and Ursula The Cat, a rescue torbie tabby who does not think much of the dogs.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for the Mercy Carr series:

"A twisty, tangly plot, likable characters and lovable dogs make, THE WEDDING PLOT, a must read!" — Romance Junkies

"Insanely readable... Mercy reminds me very much of the character that drew me to mystery fiction as an adult: Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski. ... This was a fast, fun, intelligent read, sweetened (as these books always are) by the literary epigraphs that begin each chapter. True to this book’s theme, they are all about love. I’ll jump in – I loved this book." — Aunt Agatha's

"The Wedding Plot is a superbly entertaining mystery, in large part because of the relationship between Mercy and [her dog] Elvis. Such pairings are no stranger to thriller fiction these days, but this one’s the best of the bunch for my money." - Jon Land's Thrill List

"I love books where the story and the characters grow out of the place that they're set, and that couldn't be more true of The Hiding Place, which delivers a satisfying, twisty plot, an entertaining ensemble of locals and, of course, a pair of intelligent and heroic dogs." —Ann Cleeves, New York Times Bestselling Author of the Vera and Shetland series

“My favorite human/canine duo, Mercy Carr and Elvis, hit all the marks again in The Wedding Plot. This series has it all—pacing, well-drawn characters, romance, an evocative setting, and best of all, dogs that will win your heart. Highly recommended!” —Deborah Crombie, New York Times bestselling author of the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James series

"Enjoyable... distinctive characters... This is a fine escapist fare for a hot summer day." —Publishers Weekly on The Wedding Plot

"[The] characters of both Mercy and Elvis are quickly developing into classics." —Aunt Agatha's Bookstore

"There’s so much to praise here: Munier’s deep knowledge of the culture of hunting (especially the bow-and-arrow variety); her brisk, incisive characterizations; the way she maintains a taut line of suspense throughout; and, best of all, her portrayals of wounded yet still courageous pairs of humans and dogs. A not-to-be-missed K-9 mystery." —Booklist on Blind Search

"The portrayal of working dogs will appeal to fans of David Rosenfelt and Margaret Mizushima. The blend of lovingly detailed setting and lively characters, both human and canine, makes this a series to watch." —Publishers Weekly on A Borrowing of Bones

From the Publisher

02/01/2022

In The Paper Caper, Carlisle's latest "Bibliophile Mystery," murder transpires at the first annual Mark Twain Festival, held by Brooklyn Wainwright at her bookstore and underwritten by media magnate Joseph Cabot. In Castillo's The Hidden One, Amish elders turn to Painters Mill chief of police Kate Burkholder when the remains of a long-vanished bishop are discovered, bearing evidence of foul play (150,000-copy first printing). Private informer Flavia Albia's next Desperate Undertaking is finding a serial killer (or killers) committing brutal murder and staging the corpses around Davis's first-century CE Rome (30,000-copy first printing). In Hokuloa Road, cross genre-writing, Shirley Jackson Award-winning Hand makes Grady Kendall caretaker of a luxury property in Hawaii (as far as possible from his native Maine), then has him hunting for a young woman from his flight who has since vanished (30,000-copy first printing). In McCall Smith's The Sweet Remnants of Summer, Isabel Dalhousie is serving on an advisory committee for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery when she is caught up in the squabbles of a prominent family where Nationalist vs. Socialist ideologies prevail. In Peril at the Exposition, a follow-up to March's Edgar finalist debut, Murder in Old Bombay, newlyweds Capt. Jim Agnihotri and Diana Framji have left British-ruled Bombay (now Mumbai) for 1890s Boston when Jim is sent to investigate a murder in Chicago (50,000-copy first printing). In Munier's The Wedding Plot, Mercy's grandmother Patience is set to marry her longtime beloved at the five-star Lady's Slipper Inn when family enmities bubble to the surface, the inn's spa director vanishes, and a stranger turns up dead (30,000-copy first printing). In An Honest Living—a debut from Murphy, editor in chief of CrimeReads, Literary Hub's crime fiction vertical—an attorney picking up odd jobs after walking out on his stranglehold law firm agrees to help reclusive literati Anna Reddick find her possibly thieving bookseller husband, and all's well until the real Anna Reddick walks in. In Rosenfelt's Holy Chow, an older woman who adopts sweet senior chow mix Tessie from Andy Carpenter's Tara Foundation makes Andy promise that if she dies he will take care of Tessie provided that her son cannot—which he certainly can't when he is arrested days later on suspicion of his mother's murder (60,000-copy first printing).

Library Journal