Independent publisher of award-winning books by Kelly Brakenhoff
The premise sold me before I even turned the first page: four strangers happen to be sitting at the same table in the Boston Public Library when they hear a scream, and then find out a woman has been killed. What follows is everything that brought those four people to that table, everything they’re hiding, and a tangle of crimes that keeps expanding the longer you pull on the thread.
If you’ve read Death 101: Extra Credit, you already know this story. Cassandra Sato has told it so many times, she knows it by heart. But in case you haven’t met Michiko Sato yet, let me introduce you.
Charlie Kingsley agrees to be the plus-one for her friend Claire for what sounds like a cozy weekend house party. That alone already feels like a commitment, but it turns out it is not actually a party at all. It is a gathering to read Claire’s grandmother’s will, which is the kind of situation that practically guarantees tension.
Every good pilgrimage ends with the journey home. No surprise, ours required a little extra patience. Our group left Cuatro Ciénegas before sunrise on Sunday morning for the long drive back to Monterrey. The bus was quiet at first, some still sleepy, some waiting for the caffeine to kick in, and many of us were still processing the past few days.
By the time Saturday arrived, it felt like we had been in Cuatro Ciénegas much longer than a few days. No complaints from me. I love those trips where one moment leads naturally into the next. We began at dawn with Fr. Brandenburg leading a small group hiking up a rocky ridge near the Tierra Maria vineyard. The trail involved a fair amount of bouldering over large rocks and a steep ascent.
One of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip was walking the Camino de San José. The pilgrimage follows a series of stations across the desert, each one reflecting on a different moment in the life of St. Joseph. Our group had spent several mornings walking stretches of the route, stopping along the way to read reflections from a guidebook written by Fr. Daniel Brandenburg called The Way of St. Joseph.
By the time we were divided into work teams, Dave was sent outside with the painting crew and I joined a few others inside a small stucco house belonging to a young mother I’ll call Carmen. She’s eighteen and lives there with her younger brother, her three-year-old daughter Rosa, and another baby girl due any day
After twenty-eight hours of travel, reroutes, missed flights, a cheap hotel, and maybe four hours of sleep, we finally arrived in Monterrey, Mexico. I would love to say we stepped off the plane refreshed and ready for our mission trip. That would be a lie.
The trip was supposed to be simple.
A quick flight from Lincoln to Chicago, then on to Monterrey, Mexico to begin a weekend mission trip. Our church friends were already heading south. Warm sun, desert hikes, and a few days of service were waiting for us. Instead, the day became a masterclass in missed connections.
Even though I write and read a lot of cozy mysteries where the villains are more “small-town scandal” than world-domination evil, my personal TV and reading tastes sometimes wander into darker territory.
