Where There’s A Will: A Glass Dolphin Mystery

Cozy Mystery

3rd in Series

Publisher: Superior Shores Press (November 10, 2020)

Paperback: 210 pages

Synopsis

Emily Garland is getting married and looking for the perfect forever home. When the old, and some say haunted, Hadley house comes up for sale, she’s convinced it’s “the one.” The house is also perfect for reality TV star Miles Pemberton and his new series, House Haunters. Emily will fight for her dream home, but Pemberton’s pockets are deeper than Emily’s, and he’ll stretch the rules to get what he wants.

While Pemberton racks up enemies all around Lount’s Landing, Arabella Carpenter, Emily’s partner at the Glass Dolphin antiques shop, has been hired to appraise the contents of the estate, along with her ex-husband, Levon. Could the feuding beneficiaries decide there’s a conflict of interest? Could Pemberton?

Things get even more complicated when Arabella and Levon discover another will hidden inside the house, and with it, a decades-old secret. Can the property stay on the market? And if so, who will make the winning offer: Emily or Miles Pemberton?

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Excerpt

Emily Garland couldn’t believe it. After nearly a decade of being rented out, the old Hadley house was finally on the market. According to her real estate agent, Poppy Spencer, it was priced to sell and would get snapped up fast.

Emily had hesitated at first, given what she’d heard about the property’s history. How many people wanted to buy a house where the owner had been murdered? True, he hadn’t actually been murdered in the house, but the case had never been solved, and for the past decade, tenants had come and gone, none staying beyond a few months, most no more than a few weeks. Rumor had it the spirit of Esther Harriet Hadley haunted the house, unable to rest until her husband, Martin’s, killer or killers were brought to justice.

Even so, she had to admit that the Hadley house appeared to tick all their boxes, at least from the description and photographs on the agent’s website:

Location, location, location! This rustic four-bedroom, two-bathroom Victorian charmer on desirable Walnut Street includes a generous garden for your green thumb and a high-ceilinged lower level with loads of potential. Put your own stamp on this one. Motivated vendor.

Emily had seen enough houses to know that “Rustic charmer” translated to “needed serious renovations,” whereas the “generous garden for your green thumb” meant an overgrown, weed-infested plot of land, and the “lower level with loads of potential” was realtor speak for an unfinished basement. But the Walnut Street location was absolutely perfect—a ten-minute walk to the Glass Dolphin, and a short drive to reach the main road to Lakeside for Luke. “Buy the worst house on the best street,” Poppy had said, and this house certainly qualified.

Prospects and possibilities, that’s what a house was supposed to be, not just four walls, a roof, and a place to sleep. Emily browsed through the online photos and virtual tour multiple times, and thought this could be “the one,” the creepiness factor of the old murder notwithstanding. Besides, it wasn’t as if she believed in ghosts.

About the Author

A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the author of two mystery series: the Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including The Best Laid Plans and Heartbreaks & Half-truths, which she also edited. Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she serves as Chair on the Board of Directors.

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