Murder Checks Inn: A Maiden Harlow Mystery, Volume 1

A Midwestern hotel employee reinvents herself as an amateur sleuth in Sharp’s endearing debut cozy. Maiden Harlow works at the Harlow House Inn in Golden Glen, Mich., alongside her parents and her sister, Vonny. Most days consist of little more than lugging bags up and down stairs and managing the occasional hotheaded guest. Then a man named Mr. Creevey, who arrived at the inn with no ID and few possessions, is found in his room with his head bashed in. After police captain David McAlister learns that Maiden had a heated argument with the dead man when she caught him trying to hack the inn’s computer system, he pins her as his lead suspect. To clear her name, Maiden sets out to solve the murder herself, following a trail of clues that leads to an unprecedented bank robbery in a neighboring town. Sharp doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but her plotting is brisk and she makes Maiden’s wobbly first attempts at detecting feel plausible. This a diverting whodunit for fans of Murder, She Wrote. (Self-published)