Spring is in full bloom and everything is blossoming just right for Harry in Crozet, Virginia. Restorations to the long-shuttered local segregated school are nearly complete and the school will be renamed to commemorate an important community member. To honor the former students, Harry and her friends are hard at work planning a reunion. But the 15 acres behind the school are enticing for more than just a school reunion. One realtor soon reveals plans to buy the land and build over it --- unless the crew can find a way to stop the sale. In their search to prevent the purchase, they come across something unexpected: a dead body, which might not be the first to show up this season. With a little aid from Tee Tucker and Pirate, as well as feline sleuths Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, Harry just might have a chance at solving this mystery and preventing the land purchase once and for all.
Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen’s dear friend, Ned Tucker, is in the House of Delegates, advocating for a bill to improve road clearing during bad weather. Tensions are high between political parties, and no one can agree on anything for long enough to get something done. The bill’s chief detractor is Amanda Fields, a former newscaster turned delegate whose flair for the dramatic has earned her a formidable reputation --- and made her more than a few enemies. Amanda’s claws-out approach to politics might have some of her colleagues wishing she was dead, but the statehouse is rocked when one of the young pages who assists the delegates dies under mysterious circumstances. Could his death be related to the political infighting? Or is something even more sinister threatening the lives of Virginia’s finest representatives?
Spring arrives in northern Virginia, and the women of St. Luke’s Lutheran Church prepare for a Homecoming celebration like no other. Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen, Susan Tucker and their friends are busy planting flowers and trimming hedges to get the church grounds in shape for the big day. But a note of a menace mars the beautiful spring: The brewery owned by Janice Childs and Mags Nielsen, two members of the gardening committee, gets robbed, with hundreds of dollars in merchandise taken off their delivery trucks. When Jeannie Cordle drops dead at a charity auction, poisoned by a fatal weed, Harry’s worst suspicions are confirmed: a killer lurks in their midst, one with a keen understanding of poisonous plants.
A massive nor’easter has hit northern Virginia, where Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen joins groundskeeping efforts at the National Beagle Club at Aldie as the date for its springtime Hounds for Heroes veterans’ benefit approaches. Harry’s fellow volunteers, including her oldest friend, Susan Tucker, comprise a spirited group of hunting enthusiasts, some former service members themselves. But things take a sinister turn when, after a routine tree cleanup along the Club’s hunting trails, retired foreign services officer Jason Holzknect is found dead. Soon enough, another murder in their midst jolts the preparations, convincing Harry that the killer is familiar with the Club --- and must be close by, masked in plain sight.
With the New Year just around the corner, winter has transformed the cozy Blue Ridge Mountain community of Crozet, Virginia, into a living snow globe. It’s the perfect setting for Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen to build a new work shed designed by her dear friend, local architect Gary Gardner. But the natural serenity is shattered when out of the blue, right in front of Harry and Deputy Cynthia Cooper, Gary is shot to death by a masked motorcyclist. Outraged by the brazen murder, Harry begins to burrow into her friend’s past --- and unearths a pattern of destructive greed reaching far back into Virginia’s post-Revolutionary history. When Harry finds incriminating evidence, the killer strikes again.
Spring has sprung in Crozet, Virginia --- a time for old friends to gather and bid farewell to the doldrums of winter. Harry and her husband, Fair, are enjoying a cozy dinner with some of the town’s leading citizens, including beloved University of Virginia history professor Greg “Ginger” McConnell and several members of UVA’s celebrated 1959 football team. But beneath the cloak of conviviality lurks a sinister specter from the distant past that threatens to put all their lives in jeopardy.
Rita Mae Brown collaborates with feline co-author Sneaky Pie Brown in a new mystery starring Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen, the curious cat detectives Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, and Tee Tucker, the valiant crime-solving corgi. Halloween arrives early this year to rural central Virginia, when a twisted killer will stop at nothing to protect a multimillion-dollar scheme.
It's an election year --- and Sneaky Pie Brown is taking time out of her busy schedule of writing bestselling mysteries to make a run for the big office! As the first feline to hit the White House since Socks Clinton, Sneaky Pie has an animal rights agenda that will keep ears perked and tails wagging all over the country. Also on the campaign trail are a frisky flock of animal friends that Sneaky Pie has plucked to fill her cabinet.