Murder in Mendocino — Mary Kittredge

LOCAL COLOR

Abdicating as queen of the Home Repair guides, author Charlotte Kent fled to quaint Pelican Rock to produce a "real" book: the biography of the California town's most famous, and tragic, historical figure, Dr. Stanley Hardwicke.

Then one of her creative writing students smugly flaunts her own imminent success on the same subject. However, obnoxious Rena Blount is fatally shot before Charlotte can throttle her.

Was Rena murdered because of what she knew--or what the killer thought she knew--about Hardwicke? Pelican Rock's older citizens are strangely silent about the mysterious doctor... and now a teenage boy has disappeared. Is there a connection? Charlotte starts digging--and discovers the past may die... but murder lives on.