A Dagger Among Friends: A Harvest Falls Mystery

Comer (Barrow Witch) effortlessly pivots from fantasy to crime fiction with this delightful series launch set in small-town Oregon. When 40-something Charlie Goode moved back to Harvest Falls—a “tourist way-stop nestled in the Coast Range” where her father is chief of police—her only plan for the future was to reapply to medical school. She’d intended to become a doctor decades earlier, before a relationship with a deadbeat boyfriend sent her in a different direction. That relationship is recently terminated, but when her medical school application is denied, she winds up at loose ends, with no love life to speak of and no career prospects on the horizon. That changes when Charlie’s former best friend, Addie Newsome, is found stabbed to death in her car. Though the two had hardly spoken since high school, Charlie decides to investigate after rumors circulate that Addie’s murder could be linked to her father’s long-ago death under similar circumstances—and that Charlie’s father might have had a hand in covering up those and other crimes. Comer nails the small-town atmosphere, and shrewdly uses Charlie’s lifelong fascination with board games to make her a convincing amateur sleuth. This will hook fans of Joan Hess’s fizzy regional whodunits. (Self-published)