A Hint of Murder by Karin Kaufman is Book 4 in A Kelsie Butler Mystery Series.
While Kelsie Butler is enjoying her coffee on this rainy morning, standing with her dog Stella looking out her front door, she spots an unusual something tied around her crabapple tree. She retrieves a wrapped in plastic note in a creme colored envelope with matching stationery inside. After reading it, she's sure it's a prank written with a Shakespearean quote and talking about a committed murder with another to follow. Anyone who knows her would know she was an adjunct English professor before she came to her current home in Fairwood, probably assuming she would recognize the quote which she does. But to be sure, she opens her huge book of Shakespearean quotes to the page where it's located to find another note with a second "hint" to the next murder. That's when she realizes someone has broken into her home and stashed this second note either before or after posting the first one outside on her tree.
And so begins her search for the person who would violate her residence and plot murders with clues and a timeline to discover who it is that's doing this.
When her friend and fellow sleuth Angela get together to discuss the clues and break-in, they later inform their third partner in mystery-solving, Gwen, owner of Fig's pastry and coffee shop. When she races over there to help plan their next steps, Kelsie knows she must take these to the police to report the break-in, still not convinced the notes aren't some sort of prank but drawing the line at someone being in her home.
It's as she's leaving the precinct, after reporting the crime and allowing photocopies to be made of the notes since she wasn't allowed to speak directly to Chief Sinclair at that time, that what she sees suddenly changes her mind about the notes being a prank.
Things begin to escalate, a neighbor helps identify who planted the initial clues, and indeed the body count rises along with enough gossip to implicate more suspects.
A Hint of Murder is a very quick read full of interesting twists and guilty parties - but not of murder. There's one person to find, but Kelsie's done with the game. When Gwen decides to charge after the next clue by herself, nothing goes as it should.
A fun read and very well done by Karin Kaufman, the Queen of Cozy Mysteries.
Father, thank you for the gifts and talents you've given Karin. I pray your blessing over her in every way - that she can feel it, body, soul, and spirit. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.