There are such beings in the world, perhaps one in a thousand, as the creature you and I should think perfection, where grade and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding: but such a person may not come in your way. . . .

—a letter to Fanny from Jane Austen

“. . . how are you?” said Winnie-the-Pooh.

Eeyore shook his head from side to side.

“Not very how,” he said. “I don’t seem to have been at all how for a long time.”

—Winnie-the-Pooh,
A. A. Milne

“What are you thinking?” he inquired at last.

I opened my mouth to reply, changed my mind and shrugged my shoulders. I could not bring myself to say it, but there was a dead body between us.

—No Love Lost,
Margery Allingham

Acknowledgments

W
hile I have visited England many times, I’m much more familiar with Sunshine Valley. For vetting the book in England I’d like to thank Janet Cox, Ida Swearingen, and Ellen Hawley. And for checking the book out, I’d like to thank librarian Mary Steinbicker.

Also, as always, my partner and critic extraordinaire, Pete Hautman. And my sidekicks: Pat Boenhardt, Deborah Woodworth, and Kathy Erickson.

R
osie, now there are two dead men.”

“Karen, is that you?” a very sleepy voice asked me.

I knew it was the middle of the night in Minnesota, but I had to talk to someone. “This has not turned out to be the trip to England I thought it would be.”

“Come home and we can talk about it,” she said.

I could tell she was not even awake. Then she hung up the phone before I could explain.

How had I gotten to where I was?

ONE

Cracking the Spine

A week earlier

Y
ou know how it feels when you open the pages of a new book, the sense that all is possible, that this might be the book that will sweep you up so completely that you will lose yourself in its story, not stopping to eat or sleep or answer the phone, and when it ends, you will be close to weeping, knowing this experience might never happen again?

Well, that’s how I felt the morning of my first-ever trip, with my boyfriend, Dave, to England, a place I had come to know intimately thus far only through books, starting with the Hundred Acre
Wood of Winnie-the-Pooh continuing to present-day London streets of Ian McEwan’s
Atonement.

A place of infinite promise and romance was how I viewed England. The thought that I would be there within the day made me feel as if bubbles were popping on the surface of my skin. Back to the homeland, for I’m of English descent: Nash, Karen Nash.

My trip, indeed, was to prove unforgettable.

* * *

Standing behind the counter at the Sunshine Valley Library, my assistant librarian, Rosie, was staring off into space and putting a couple more bobby pins in her short, spiky auburn hair, just for decoration. When she saw me, she wrinkled her nose and asked in her squeaky voice, “What are you still doing here?”

I shrugged, hoping that I didn’t need to explain.

When she continued to stare at me with her big blue eyes, I said, “Just checking on things one last time. In case you needed anything from me . . .”

“I want you to get on that darn plane.” She squinched her mouth to one side, “But as long as you’re here, there is one thing I want to ask you.”

Rosie was a good twenty years younger than me, but rather than the daughter I had never had, she was my best friend. She was slightly taller than me and weighed thirty pounds more than my 122
pounds—a little rounder than she wanted to be. I thought her absolutely gorgeous—lovely skin and fantastic dimples.

She had three tattoos, all birds and quite small, one pierced eyebrow, and a belly-button piercing, which I had never seen, thank the Lord. I finally got my ears pierced at her urging when I turned forty-five, but I wasn’t quite ready for a tattoo.

While we both were library professionals, Rosie had made the transition to the twenty-first century as a media specialist; she was an absolute whiz on the computer. The title of plain old “librarian” still suited me.

Rosie was way into speculative fiction—often asking me her favorite question,
what if?
—and I was the champion of the mystery section. I loved the psychology of people pushed to the ultimate act of desperation and passion. I adored the classic hard-boiled guys—Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and Dashiell Hammett—but some of my favorite writers were the latest crop of British women—Frances Fyfield, Minette Walters, and our own Elizabeth George. The mysteries that asked the question
why?
were the ones I had always cherished.

Having read literally thousands of them, I was sure I knew every which way of killing someone.
I never thought a time would come when I would make use of it.

“Did I tell you that he came in again yesterday, the cute sci-fi guy?” Rosie whispered, her eyes wide with glee.

Rosie had developed a severe crush on a library patron. It happens. We librarians are only human. The young man she had her eye on came in about once a week. Rosie liked the kind of books he checked out: lots of sci-fi with a little gardening thrown in. She liked his glasses, thick black frames. And she liked his name: Richard Wrangler. The fact that he was a frequent library patron answered the first question we wondered about on seeing a cute man—does he read?

“You might have mentioned it two or three times,” I said.

“How did you get Dave to ask you out?”

I thought back to when I had met Dave, who is a plumber, arriving at my doorstep with his box of tools. “I didn’t really have to work very hard. It seemed as if it was meant to be.”

“You make it sound easy. And now look, you’re going to England together. What should I do to get this guy to notice me?”

“You could stop up your toilet.”

When she gave me her slivered-eye look, I suggested,
more reasonably, “You could comment on something he’s taking out.”

“What if I haven’t read it?”

“Wouldn’t be good to be caught in a lie so early on in your relationship. Maybe say something like you’ve heard it’s a good book.”

“I could do that.” She fingered her eyebrow piercing. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”

I had only seen Richard once. He looked like I had always pictured Ichabod Crane, tall and thin to the point of it being slightly painful. “He’s got a certain charm.”

Rosie reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. “I can’t believe you’re leaving. I’m going to miss you. E-mail, snail mail, postcards are even good.”

I nodded, getting a little misty. I couldn’t believe I was going on this trip either, but I knew adventure was waiting for me over the ocean.

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