Conch Shell Murder — Dorothy Brenner Francis / Dorothy Francis

For newly licensed private investigator Katie Hassworth, it's both, but that's a long story. The short of it is now she's been hired to find the killer of Alexa Chitting, owner of a prosperous marina, bludgeoned by conch shell. While the police are calling it a robbery gone bad, her family suspects murder when they learn the victim's new will bequeaths her considerable fortune to the Key West Preservation Society. Surprise, surprise -- especially if the killer is one of her embittered near and dear: husband, lover, daughter, son-in-law or personal secretary.

But the case gets messier when the suspect list extends even beyond Alexa's conniving family to include a cunning panhandler and local bureaucrats, drawing Katie into a tangled net of political and familial corruption that may make her first murder case her last.