Killing Time — Suzanne Trauth

With Halloween just around the corner, Dodie O'Dell is making preparations to transform the Windjammer Restaurant on the Jersey Shore into a haunted house, while the Etonville Little Theatre is staging Dracula. But casting the titular Transylvanian is proving challenging. The amateur actors in the company are not shy about chewing the scenery, but who among them can convincingly sink their fangs into a victim's neck? When a mysterious newcomer with a transfixing Eastern European accent lands the part, rumors that he might be an actual vampire start to take flight -- not unlike the bat who's recently been spotted in the town park.

But everyone's blood really runs cold when a cast member is found in a prop coffin with a real stake in his heart. Dodie decides to put her Halloween theme menu on the back burner and stick her neck out to bring the killer into the light of day. She'd better keep her wits about her, though -- or Dodie may be the next one to go down for the Count . . .