The Alpine Recluse — Mary Daheim

In the middle of a hot summer night, Emma Lord is awakened by fire trucks rushing to the nearby home of newlyweds Tim and Tiffany Rafferty. At daybreak, Tiffany and her unborn child are safe, but Tim, never blessed with good luck in all his thirty-plus years, has perished in the fierce conflagration. Amid rumors of a crumbling marriage, arson, and murder, Emma puts her own budding romance on the back burner and shifts into high investigative gear, while her fearless House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, rushes in where angels fear to tread: straight into the private lives of some of Alpine's most respectable -- and now terminally edgy -- citizens. But neither Emma .nor Vida suspects the unbelievable truth.