A Devious Lot

Molly Appleby has promised her new husband Matt her sleuthing day are over, but before their honeymoon is completed, she is off on another mystery. In A Devious Lot by Ellery Adams and Parker Riggs, Molly and Matt's honeymoon in London has been uneventful. But a trip to the Cotswold to visit her aunt Tessa leads her unwittingly into an investigation.

As in every small village there is a certain amount of intrigue. In this one a woman named Tiffany is trying to win her boyfriend Giles back from his new love Penelope. Unfortunately his mother doesn't approve of Tiffany and is pushing strongly for the marriage to Penelope.

Tiffany, not one to take no for an answer, sets out a course of confrontation and harassment. An unwise decision as it turns out. She barges in on a tea party at Channing Hall claiming she wants to sell Giles the antique lover's eye he had given her. He tells her to have it appraised and name a price. Before she can have the lover's eye appraised, she is found dead in her cottage. Giles thinks she killed herself, but Molly finds that unlikely.

When the lover's eye turns up missing, Molly knows she has to get involved. Even the local police want her to assist because of her knowledge of antiques.

Intertwined with the main story is the original story of the lover's eye. It begins in the 1850s when star-crossed lovers are unable to marry and the lovely young woman is "traded" to a brute for assistance with the family fortune. Molly is able to trace the history of the eye to a startling conclusion.