Once More, With Murder (Forensic Femmes #1)

It's 1959, and if a historic drought isn't bad enough, it turns out murder is terrible for tourism. All Detective Inspector Jack Penny wants to do with his summer is solve petty crimes and flirt with pretty tourists. Investigating twisted poisonings and confronting the specters of the past are not on his to-do list. Unfortunately, both arrive in the Cotswolds’ village of Buxton-on-the-Water on the same day… riding on the heels of Jack’s estranged wife.

Forensic expert Charlotte Buchanan lied. She said she wanted a country holiday to work on her next mystery novel, but in truth, she wants to say goodbye. Perhaps it’s ten years too late, but Charlotte is finally going to ask Jack Penny for a divorce. With a lifelong, incurable illness looming, she refuses to be a burden to him. She didn’t expect to be swept up in a murder investigation, and prolonged contact makes it difficult to keep her diagnosis a secret from the man she never stopped loving.

When the phantom poisoner strikes again, serving up another dramful of whiskey and two more bodies, Jack fights to put past traumas behind him to focus on his duty. Yet he is drawn to Charlotte like iron to a magnet, and as the pair strike sparks, Jack can’t help but be driven to dangerous distraction by the mystery of the woman he still desires.