Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0609808664, Paperback)

It’s New Year’s Eve in the quiet English village of Lesser Swinfold, and sculptress Sam Jones has arrived to celebrate the holiday with her old friend Tom, who teaches primary school and lives in a rustic bed-and-breakfast. Sam is not in for a relaxing vacation, though. Hugo, Sam’s city-loving boyfriend, is vexed to no end that they had to leave London for the countryside and won’t let her forget how unhappy he is. However, Hugo’s tantrums are quickly forgotten when Tom’s latest girlfriend is killed and Sam suddenly finds herself thrust again into a murder investigation where Tom is the lead suspect.

While defending her wrongly accused best pal, Sam ends up uncovering more than she bargained for, including her deep attraction to Alan, a young, impossibly gorgeous college student who may hold the key to the entire case. Will Sam’s longing for another adventure set her on course for true love or cause a deadly disaster?

Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0091793726, Paperback)

In every murderer’s worst nightmare, Sam Jones is unleashed for her seventh crack at the crime world. It’s New Year’s Eve in the quiet village of Lesser Swinfold, and sculptor and involuntary sleuth Sam has arrived to celebrate with her boyfriend, Hugo. Sam’s best friend, Tom, has taken a job in the village as a primary-school teacher in the hopes of meeting plenty of available, sex-hungry, single mothers. Unfortunately Hugo hates the countryside, Tom has fallen in love with a single mother who is less interested in him than she would be in a frontal lobotomy, and Sam is flirting with a twenty-two-year-old with the face of a fallen angel. So the discovery of a body stabbed forty times and tied to the village Christmas tree is an unwelcome complication, especially when Tom becomes the prime suspect.

Distracted by the appalling shape of her love life, Sam’s not in the best shape for tracking down the murderer before the local police haul her off to jail. And will Hugo ever talk to her again?