A Taste for Murder (Hemlock Falls Mystery)

This book is fun. Looks like the begining of a series that features two sleuthing sisters who run Hemlock Falls Inn. Sarah owns the Inn and her sister, Meg is the chef. We are brought into the towns annual festival, whose highlight is a reenactment of 17th century witch trials, which ends in a mock excution of a witch by stones; which becomes all to real. The victim, a guest from the Inn. The murderer...anyone in town.... The sisters rely on their skill for catching culprits.

Claudia Bishop creates a likeable character in Sarah Quilliam, called Quill, who is the proprietor of the Inn at Hemlock Falls. Her widowed sister Meg happens to be a whiz in the kitchen and the two team up to run the Inn and solve murders on the side. The focus of this book is a festival where the history of the area is re-enacted in a play which describes the witch trials which occurred in the 17th. century. The members of the Chamber of Commerce run the play and they are suspects in the murders which occur, along with the colorful characters who inhabit the Inn during the History Days festival. Quill's boyfriend is the sheriff and he tries to disuade her from being too nosey about the murders, but to no avail. She prides herself on her investigative talents, but she is not the first person in the Inn to deduce the identity of the killer. This is a well-written and enjoyable book.