What next can go wrong? There I was, the day after our spring festival had folded, a festival that all the collectibles shop owners had invested time and money into in order to draw crowds to Keepsake Cove. I soon found out.

It all started when I found out that Duane, who was in charge of hiring the entertainers, had unwittingly signed up the country western band that my ex-boyfriend, Hank, recently joined. The ex-boyfriend I’d thought I’d seen the last of when I moved to Keepsake Cove and took over the music box shop!

That was bad enough, though Brian, the guy I’ve been seeing for a while, was very understanding, even when Hank dedicated one of his songs to me at the festival. But the next morning brought the news of the murder of Hank’s band manager. I’d only met Bobby briefly, and hadn’t liked him much. But he had promised Hank and the band big things, like a recording contract supposedly in the works, so I was mostly sorry for Hank that that might fall apart.

The murder, however, closed the festival a day early, which was what had some of the shopkeepers currently upset, and they were clamoring for Duane to refund their costs. Duane, at first, handled it reasonably. But when they kept pressuring him, he tried to shift the blame onto me, saying all the trouble was because I’d pushed him to hire Hank’s band, which was totally false!

So there I was, fending off angry glares from my fellow shopkeepers and wondering what awful thing could happen next, when my phone rang. It was Hank, calling from jail. He’d been arrested for the murder of his manager.

“It’s not true!” Hank claimed. But I was the only one in the area who knew him well enough to believe that. For all his faults, Hank didn’t have a violent bone in his body. “I need your help!” he cried.

I looked pleadingly to Brian, who was standing next to me, and explained the problem. He helped find Hank a lawyer right away. But I worried that that wouldn’t be enough. It was the last thing I wanted to do, to get involved once again with Hank’s series of stupid missteps that only led to problems. But this was a big one. So I decided I needed to start looking for the real murderer. I would make a plan to work carefully and discretely and not put myself in any danger.

And if I stuck to that, I reasoned, what could possibly go wrong?

You can read more about Callie in A Curio Killing, the third book in the “Keepsake Cove” mystery series, released September 8, 2019.

Callie finds treble in Keepsake Cove when her ex-boyfriend is framed for murder

Callie Reed is looking forward to her first Keepsake Cove spring festival. But her excitement dims considerably when she learns that her ex-boyfriend, Hank, will be performing with one of the hired country-western bands. Callie vows to keep her distance, but that changes when the band’s manager, Bobby Linville, is found dead, killed with the music box Hank bought at Callie’s shop.

Hank is soon singing a sad tune in a detention center with Callie his only lifeline. Though thoroughly aware of his many faults, she knows violence and murder aren’t in his blood. But that means one of her fellow Keepsake Cove residents must be hiding a dark secret—something Callie desperately needs to uncover.

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About the author
Mary Ellen Hughes is the bestselling author of the Pickled and Preserved Mysteries, the Craft Corner Mysteries, and the Maggie Olenski Mysteries, along with several short stories. A Curio Killing is the third of her Keepsake Cove mysteries. A Wisconsin native, she currently lives in Maryland, where many of her stories are set. To learn more about Mary Ellen, visit her website at maryellenhughes.com.

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