Booked For Murder

When a famous travel writer's research leads to murder at Mockingbird Books, bookshop owner Lila Hart discovers that some literary tourism claims are deadly serious—and worth killing to protect. Mockingbird Bay is buzzing with excitement about being featured in Vanessa Palmer's prestigious "e;Literary Landmarks of Coastal America"e; guidebook. But Palmer's visit takes a deadly turn when she's found murdered in the bookshop's travel section, killed because of her investigation into fabricated tourism stories that someone was desperate to keep hidden. As Lila and Sheriff Cooper Reid investigate, they uncover a centuries-old conspiracy involving maritime smuggling, systematic murder, and powerful families who've been eliminating researchers for generations. With the murder investigation revealing Palmer was hunting for a valuable 19th-century travel diary that supposedly contains clues to hidden manuscripts, the stakes escalate beyond literary fraud to life-threatening danger. With Palmer dead and her ex-husband missing near the lighthouse, someone is clearly desperate to claim the diary's secrets. But when Lila finds the diary hidden in her own bookshop, she realizes her grandmother was protecting evidence of crimes spanning back to the 1880s—evidence that connects maritime "e;accidents"e; to a network of families who've built their fortunes on murder and theft. With Palmer's unfinished investigation revealing dangerous secrets and mysterious figures threatening everyone involved in the case, Lila must decode clues left by a Victorian-era researcher who died trying to expose the same conspiracy. But when the investigation leads to dangerous coastal caves and a confrontation with people who've been perfecting murder for five generations, Lila discovers that completing a 140-year-old investigation might cost her everything. This is the sixth installment in the Bookmarked Mystery series.