Cozy Monday

Basket Case (Silver Six Crafting Mystery #1) by Nancy Haddock (Berkley Prime Crime mass market paperback, 1 September 2015).

It's not that Leslee "Nixy" Nix doesn't care about her elderly Aunt Sherry Mae Cutler, but she also loves her job at  Gates Fine Art Gallery in Houston, and works long hours hoping for a promotion.

But she gets a call from Detective Eric Shoar in Lilyvale, Arkansas, informing her that there have a rash of emergency calls to Sherry's house, and that Nixy needs to get up there within a week or Sherry and her housemates will become wards of the state.  It suddenly dawns on Nixy that she hasn't seen her Sherry since her mother, Sherry's sister, died nearly a year and a half earlier.

She heads straight to Lilyvale, where she discovers that Sherry and her five housemates (all senior citizens) are doing just fine.  Their biggest problem is an unethical land developer who is harassing Sherry and her neighbors to sell her their property.  When the developer, whom Nixy refers to as "Hellspawn" is found dead in the family cemetery, Sherry is the prime suspect.   Nixy is positive that her aunt is innocent, and determines to stay in Lilyvale until she can prove it.

Spending time with the "Silver Six" as they've dubbed themselves, helps Nixy (as well as the reader) realize how sharp and capable the group is, and how much she enjoys being with them.

At the end of the book are crafting tips and recipes, along with an excerpt from the second book in the series, Goodbye, Gourdgeous (though no release date is given).



The publisher has generously offered a copy of Basket Case to one of my readers in the US.  Please comment below before midnight on September 7, 2015.  Don't forget to include an email address where I can contact you if you win.



FTC Full Disclosure:  Many thanks to the publisher for the review copy of this book!