Dead on the Vine

Charlotte Finn never wanted to inherit the family's produce farm—much less plow a heap of money into it. Her plan is to hammer a great big FOR SALE sign into the farm's fallow furrows, but her sunny hopes of a quick sale succumb to a killing frost when she finds a dead body entwined supine in the tomato vines. The poor man, it seems, was run through...with a pitchfork? Now, Charlotte is stuck running the farm in the midst of a murder investigation. Her knowledge of farming is smaller than her bank balance, so she relies on caretakers Joe and Alice Wong and their farmhands. But can she trust them? She doesn't know them. There's also farmer Samuel Brown, who still carries a childhood grudge. But the case gets personal when Charlotte learns that the victim might have been her own kin—and seeds of suspicion grow into a fertile field of suspects. Charlotte turns to the farm's pig to help root out the killer. Soon, the goats, geese, and horse join in, but will Charlotte harvest a murderer—or buy the farm?