Elaine Orr

Rekindling Motives Elaine Orr

Can Prohibition be linked to a modern murder? In the second book of the Jolie Gentil cozy mystery series, Jolie gets tapped for some appraisal work at her 10th high school reunion.  She appraises the vacant Tillotson-Fisher house and finds the skeleton of Richard Tillotson hidden in an antique attic wardrobe. He vanished just after his sister married his business partner in 1929. Jolie sees a link to the Fisher family's Prohibition era business and works with friends Scoobie and Ramona to gather clues from old photo albums and ledgers. The photo albums lead her to Mary Doris Milner, Richard's girlfriend, who has fond memories of him and is certain of who murdered him.  But, there was nothing to link her suspect to the murder then, and he's long dead himself.

The present day murder of Mary Doris tells Jolie and Scoobie they are on the right track. Did the secret she kept all these years finally kill her? Mary Doris' death means Jolie won't stop until she finds her killer, whether that leads to a culprit in Richard's decades-old murder or not.

Between running the food pantry at Christmas time and escaping a burning building, Jolie and Scoobie hope to figure out who the modern killer is before someone else gets hurt.