Sins Out of School

English food is all well and good in its place, but for expatriate amateur sleuth Dorothy Martin, there's nothing like a good Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings to make November seem complete. In the midst of the preparations, though, when Dorothy gets a call to help out for one day at the local school because Amanda Doyle just hasn't shown up, she does agree to help; she was, after all, a schoolteacher. Things turn out very badly on Thanksgiving Day. As she awaits the arrival of her guests, Dorothy gets another call: Could she look after Mrs. Doyle's nine-year-old daughter, Miriam? The child's father has been murdered, and the murmurings over the wishbone are not part of any celebration Dorothy would have planned.

'Dorothy's outsider status gives her a fresh perspective on village eccentricities. . . . Dorothy's not exactly bland herself, given her penchant for detecting, her colorful millinery, and her phone-answering cat.'—Detroit Free Press