The Body in the Red Velvet Robe — Dorothy Leigh Abel

When novelist Beth Lindsey rents a cozy cottage in Virginia, she thinks she will be able to devote her full attention to devising a plot for her new mystery novel. But it doesn't take long before a ready-made, real-life mystery appears in the form of a body in a red velvet robe.

Now murder has become fact instead of fiction for Beth, and she must become sleuth instead of storyteller. With the help of Ethan Harrington, a handsome, intriguing man with a few secrets of his own. Beth works to expose the killer before the killer closes the book on her.