Killing the goose

the long version

Cleo Harper is nineteen, and pretty enough to catch any boy’s eye. But when the police find her, there’s a gash in her throat and blood on her clothes. Cleo’s been dead for just a few minutes. She’d been eating lunch in a coffee shop when she was stabbed in the neck, and all the evidence paints Franklin Martinelli as the killer. Every kid in the neighborhood knew he loved her; every diner in the restaurant saw them arguing before she died. To the police, it’s cut and dried. But Pamela North isn’t convinced. A vivacious, if occasionally scatterbrained, amateur sleuth, Mrs. North hears the story straight from her friend Lt. William Weigand, and she doesn’t believe a word of it. Her reasons may not make any sense, but Pamela is determined find the truth, even if nobody understands how she gets there.