Ann Purser’s popular Lois Meade mysteries have been hailed as ‘clever, engaging and suspenseful’. In this new series Ann turns the spotlight on the beloved character of Ivy Beasley – a spinster as cantankerous as she is clever – who has found a silver lining in her golden years as an amateur sleuth.

Ivy Beasley may have been moved to assisted living, but she has more interest in assisting her new partners in an amateur-sleuth business. She teams up with Gus, a mysterious newcomer who can’t resist a little excitement even as he strives to keep his past secret, and her own cousin, a widow with time on her hands and money in her purse. Together they’re determined to solve a local murder.

In one of the houses on Hangman’s Row, Gus’s elderly neighbour has been found with a bread knife sticking out of her chest. Local gossip has it that there was no love lost between the victim and her daughter, but Ivy and her fellow sleuths soon discover no shortage of suspects – or secrets – in the village.