Synopsis

Widower and anthropologist Harry Lancaster and his Gen Z colleague Emma are back for more murder and mayhem when they stumble upon a dead farmer.

This delightful sequel to A Field Guide to Murder is perfect for fans of Richard Osman and Benjamin Stevenson.

When an odd request leads Harry Lancaster to agree to meet his former sweetheart Willow at a farm on the outskirts of town, Emma’s suspicions run high, and she insists on joining him. Instead of Willow greeting them when they arrive, they discover the farm’s owner dead, with a corn rake embedded in his back.

After being interrogated by the police, Harry and Emma return to his home to find a bereft Willow, who admits she lost her life savings in a real estate scam involving the farm. Worried Willow will become the main murder suspect, Harry decides to help her, despite Emma’s concerns.

To bring the swindlers—and murderer—to justice, Harry recruits his potentially shady, financial-whiz brother and a neighborhood teenage hacker. Then Willow’s realtor is declared missing, and Harry’s brother is caught up in the fray.

As the team unearths clues, they increasingly dodge danger in their race to save Willow and Harry’s brother before anyone else turns up dead.

Amazon * Penguin Random House

This book releases on 9/15/26, preorder today!

Excerpt

“If I had a dollar for every time you’ve looked at that phone . . .” Harry Lancaster realized the comment made him sound like a crotchety old man, but at the moment, it wasn’t far from the truth. His hip hurt, his eyes were dry, and his sixty-nine-year-old body begged for sleep.

Emma Stockton sat across from him at his farmhouse kitchen table with her hand perched atop an eight-inch stack of notebooks, keeping her phone’s screen within easy view. In response to his chiding, she rolled her eyes in a signature move that his daughter Ceci had long ago perfected. Medusa-like strands of Emma’s copper hair coiled from her ponytail, looking windblown even though they’d worked inside all day.

The phone’s gravitational pull captured her gaze again. He doubled down on clichés. “Staring at it won’t make it ring.”

Ding, her phone contradicted him.

“Ha.” She lifted it in triumph, but her joy evaporated the second she peeked at the screen.

Harry knew who she was hoping to hear from, and it was clear that whoever had texted wasn’t that person.

She laid the phone back on top of the notebook stack and lightly pushed it away. The resulting slow-motion paper avalanche glided her phone downward until it clinked against her empty teacup. “My mom wants to know if I have jet lag, which, by the way, I do, if you haven’t noticed.”

He had. Dark quarter-moons hung beneath her eyes, and for the past two hours, Emma had alternated between barely stifled yawns and her eyelids dropping to half-mast. They’d returned late the night before from a three-month consulting job in South Asia, where they’d evaluated health-care projects for an aid organization that specialized in maternal and new-born health.

Evaluating aid projects was a task Harry had completed hundreds of times throughout his career as an anthropologist working around the world. For Emma, it had been her first, both the assignment and traveling overseas. He’d been impressed by how quickly she’d been able to apply her medical training as a Registered Nurse to new situations and contexts and across linguistic and cultural divides.

“I admit today’s been a push,” Harry said, “but it’s good to get our recommendations down while the memory of our fieldwork is fresh. Our final report is due May first. That’s just two weeks away.”

“I know how a calendar works,” Emma griped, far from her customary chipper demeanor. “My brain is fried. Can we please stop working?”

A phone rang before Harry could respond.

“Finally.” Emma jumped to her feet and leaned over the table to snatch up her phone with the speed of a rugby player scrambling for the ball in a tight match. Then her shoulders slumped. “It’s not mine.”

The tinkling continued, prompting Harry to pat the piles on the table near him as he tried to remember where he’d last put his phone.

Unsurprisingly, Emma knew. “Left cardigan pocket.”

While he could go an entire week without checking his cell phone, he doubted Emma could go more than ten minutes. The ringing continued as Harry fumbled his iPhone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

It wasn’t Ceci. She mainly used FaceTime, and this area code was local. He didn’t recognize the number.

“Are you going to answer it, or what?” Patience was not Emma’s forte when she was tired; neither was hiding her emotions.

He tapped the screen and spoke a hesitant, “Hello.” “Is this Harry? Harry Lancaster?”

A typical opening for a telemarketer. His guard went up. “Yes.”

“Thank goodness. I’m so glad I finally got through to you. I’ve been trying for days. I’m at my wit’s end and don’t know who else to turn to.” The female voice was cultured, with an underlying thread of desperation, raising another red flag. It could be one of those AI phone scams he’d read about in the latest AARP magazine. Computers were used to modulate or mimic voices to lure people in to hand over their money. The article had cautioned against getting drawn into conversation and giving up personal information, like guessing who the caller could be.

He kept his reply simple. “Okay.”

“I know this is out of the blue, but I really need your help.”

About the Author

Michelle L. Cullen has lived, traveled, and studied all over the world: from working as a (decent if powered by enough espresso) bilingual secretary in Paris, to backpacking around Europe, Central America, and Southern Africa, to helping rebuild communities after war throughout Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and the Pacific. She earned her master’s degree in anthropology at Melbourne University in Australia and her PhD in sociology at the London School of Economics in England. A fan of adventure, she has a black belt in Taekwondo, has summited 900 feet rock climbing, and has flown a helicopter (once, during a lesson, for five terrifying minutes). She currently lives in Annapolis, Maryland, where she’s either doing yoga, playing outside, or plotting murder.

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