Lie Like a Rug (Ginger Barnes Cozy Mysteries, Book 7) by Donna Huston Murray
Release date: january 18, 2019
Subgenre: Cozy mystery, Small town mystery
About Lie Like a Rug:
While escorting Bryn Derwyn Academy’s most infamous student downtown to
be scared straight by a Federal judge, Ginger Barnes is shocked to find
her childhood babysitter, textile professor Charlie Finnemeyer, on trial
for fraudulently aging an Oriental rug. Even more alarming, Gin learns
that two witnesses against her beloved “Uncle Wunk” suffered
suspiciously convenient heart attacks.
Eager to assist the professor’s attorney, the veteran amateur sleuth pries secret information from a university president and uncovers past transgressions of a TV craft show host—all while acquiring an overnight education in early American textiles from experts at Winterthur and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Others guilty of questionable behavior: two antique dealers, and Charlie’s overprotective wife.
Still, damning evidence
can’t be swept under a rug. Before Gin can persuade anyone else that
Charlie is innocent, she must first convince herself.
Excerpt:
Chapter
1
Ryan
Cooperman was fifteen going on thirty to life, and he was mine for the next
couple of hours. I was waiting for his mother to come out of my husband’s
office; he was trying to stare the skin off my nose.
Had
he been an ordinary teenager, I’d have snarled, “Stop that,” right in his face,
but this was the infamous Terror of Bryn Derwyn Academy, so I chose to assert
my authority in a more mature manner. I struck up a conversation about
upholstery.
“Kind
of worn,” I remarked, rubbing my finger along a thinning edge of cording. We
were seated on two blue sofas separated by a coffee table strewn with recent
yearbooks. I had selected the furniture myself only two years ago, but the
reception area of even a fledgling private school like Bryn Derwyn got plenty of
use.
“Maybe
burgundy and light blue would look nice next time.” A committee would probably
redecorate now that the school had a larger community body, but that wasn’t the
point. The point was to show this surly mutt he couldn’t get to me.
Of
course, I probably knew too much about him; for example, why he was expelled
from his previous school.
Ryan
Cooperman had stolen a pair of hundred-dollar running shoes from a track star
who’d saved months to buy them. The proud owner initialed the heels with big
block letters; but that didn’t deter Ryan. He simply unloaded his booty (for
$20) on a runner from another school. Eventually, the two track teams had a
joint meet, the victim recognized his stolen property, and the new owner
fingered our boy as the thief. Ryan’s remark at his expulsion hearing: “The kid
shouldn’t have bragged.”
I
was also aware that attached to his Bryn Derwyn Academy application were three
testimonials stressing his intelligence, young age, and willingness to learn
from his mistake.
The
letters were true. Getting caught taught Ryan to hurt others without incurring
such a high price. Teachers were now insulted via double entendres, female
classmates teased to tears. By themselves, none of his many physical pranks
merited expulsion; they simply earned him the title of Least Loved Student.
“What
do you think?” I inquired mildly, referring to the upholstery.
The
homely teenager sneered with exactly the deprecating superiority one might
expect, so I countered with my Cheshire smile. Men, especially young men, hate
that even more than they hate upholstery conversation, and this afternoon I
would need any advantage I could manufacture
For as
soon as my husband finished talking to the boy’s mother, Ryan and I would take
a train into Philadelphia for a meeting with Federal Judge Gerald Rolfe. Rip
regularly tapped Bryn Derwyn board members for their professional
expertise—that was part of the deal—and when Ryan’s latest questionable
endeavor came to light (call it the second-to-last straw) Rip immediately
thought of Gerry. A father of five boys as well as a hard-nosed proponent of
justice, he was the ideal person to scare the hell out of an arrogant,
self-involved erstwhile criminal
Amazon | B&N | Kobo | Smashwords | Indigo | Angus & Robertson | Mondadori
About Donna Huston Murray:
Donna
Huston Murray’s cozy mystery series features a woman much like herself, a DIY
headmaster's wife with a troubling interest in crime. Both novels in her new
mystery/crime series won Honorable Mention in genre fiction from Writer’s Digest, and her eighth cozy FOR
BETTER OR WORSE was shortlisted for the Chanticleer International Mystery &
Mayhem Book Award. FINAL ARRANGEMENTS, set at Philadelphia’s world famous
flower show, achieved #1 on the Kindle-store list for Mysteries and Female
Sleuths.
Comments
Post a Comment