The Dark End of Town — Julia Pomeroy

Abby -- the thirty-year-old protagonist -- has abandoned a brief career as a model in New York City to return with her new husband to Bantam, the small upstate New York town where they both grew up. When her husband dies unexpectedly, Abby tries to cope by going back to her old job at the InnBetween, the town's busiest restaurant -- minding her own business and avoiding everyone else's. But when someone starts taking her boss' minivan for unauthorized midnight jaunts, Abby reluctantly agrees to help find the culprit. Against her will she becomes entangled in a growing puzzle -- soon the plumber's bad girl daughter goes AWOL and a woman Abby just met is found shot to death. And to complicate matters, she is attracted to a man who seems to have secrets of his own. Trying to find answers while working nights at the restaurant and days transcribing for an irritating screenwriter, she follows the trail. Unaware that another murder is about to take place, the young widow gets pulled into the dark side of her small town, where looking away is no longer an option.