Bad Housekeeping: An Agnes and Effie Mystery

This witty series launch from Chance (Teetotaled) introduces 28-year-old graduate student and stress eater Agnes Blythe, of Naneda, N.Y., and her great-aunt Euphemia “Effie” Winters. Effie is back in town after inheriting the crumbling Stagecoach Inn from her cousin. The place is a dump, but globe-hopping 70-something ex-model Effie is determined to rehab the inn into an elegant getaway. She’s eager to enlist Agnes’s help, but her great-niece has other things on her mind: she has just been dumped by her professor fiancé, Roger Hollins, for a Pilates instructor. Still, Agnes has little recourse but to throw her lot in with Effie after they discover the body of the despicable Kathleen Todd in the inn, strangled to death the day after Agnes threatened to wring her neck. As prime suspects one and two, Agnes and Effie pursue a killer with the help of the high school crush who once broke Agnes’s heart, the delicious Otis Hatch. Readers will look forward to spending more time with Agnes and Effie. [em]Agent: Stephany Evans, FinePrint Literary Management. (June) [/em]