Mirror Lake

A MURDER TO SOLVE. A REPORTER ON THE TRAIL. IS THIS A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY? Welcome, dear reader! You have happened upon the delightful village of Shady H ollow, a place where rabbits and raptors, squirrels and snakes live together in civilised accord . . . with only the occasional murder to mar the peace of daily life. Keen journalist Vera Vixen is recovering from the Harvest Festival (and its bounty of local cheeses, cider and pies) when the calm is shattered by a scream from one of the small town's grandest houses. Dorothy Springfield, a rat with a reputation for eccentricity, claims her husband - who is standing right next to her - has been murdered. Has Dorothy finally lost her grip on reality? Or is the rat who claims to be Edward an imposter? Vera's fox nose scents a story. And it's not long before the discovery of a body, minus the head, complicates things further . . . Entertaining and perceptive, Mirror Lake is fast-paced and witty, with characters that jump off the page and a hugely satisfying mystery to solve. Once you've met the residents of Shady Hollow, you won't forget them.

A MURDER TO SOLVE. A REPORTER ON THE TRAIL. IS THIS A CASE OF MISTAKEN IDENTITY? Welcome, dear reader! You have happened upon the delightful village of Shady H ollow, a place where rabbits and raptors, squirrels and snakes live together in civilised accord . . . with only the occasional murder to mar the peace of daily life. Keen journalist Vera Vixen is recovering from the Harvest Festival (and its bounty of local cheeses, cider and pies) when the calm is shattered by a scream from one of the small town's grandest houses. Dorothy Springfield, a rat with a reputation for eccentricity, claims her husband - who is standing right next to her - has been murdered. Has Dorothy finally lost her grip on reality? Or is the rat who claims to be Edward an imposter? Vera's fox nose scents a story. And it's not long before the discovery of a body, minus the head, complicates things further . . . Entertaining and perceptive, Mirror Lake is fast-paced and witty, with characters that jump off the page and a hugely satisfying mystery to solve. Once you've met the residents of Shady Hollow, you won't forget them.

The third novel in the Shady Hollow mystery series, in which Vera Vixen takes on her most challenging case yet: solving the murder of a rat who appears to still be alive. Change is afoot in Shady Hollow, with an unusually tense election shaping up between long-serving Chief of Police Theodore Meade and Vera's beau, Deputy Orville Braun. But the political tension takes a back seat when resident eccentric Dorothy Springfield becomes convinced her beloved husband, Edward, is dead, and that the rat claiming to be him is actually a fraud. While most of the town dismisses Dorothy's rants as nothing more than a delusion, Vera has her doubts. More than a few things don't add up in the Springfield household, but Vera will have to tread carefully, since, with Orville's attention on the election, she may be more exposed than ever. A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL.