Dead on the Vine

Book excerpt: Perfect for fans of B. B. Haywood and Peg Cochran, Ellie B. White's whimsical series debut is full of farm fun, complete with a helpful baby pig. Reluctant farmer Charlotte Finn needs the help of the livestock to sleuth a mysterious death. Charlotte Finn never wanted to inherit the family's produce farm--much less plow a heap of money into it. Her plan is to hammer a great big FOR SALE sign into the farm's fallow furrows--but Charlotte's sunny hopes of a quick sale succumb to a killing frost when she finds a dead body entwined supine in the tomato vines. The poor man, it seems, was run through...with a pitchfork? Now, Charlotte is stuck with running the farm in the midst of a murder investigation. Charlotte's knowledge of farming is smaller than her bank balance, so she relies on caretakers Joe and Alice Wong and their farmhands. Can she trust them? She doesn't know them. There's also farmer Samuel Brown, who still carries a childhood grudge. But the case gets personal when Charlotte learns that the victim might have been her own kin--and seeds of suspicion grow into a fertile field of suspects. Charlotte turns to the farm's pig to help root out the killer. Soon, the goats, geese, and horse join in, but will Charlotte harvest a murderer--or buy the farm?