A Dismal Harvest

Summary

It's autumn on the Sonoma Coast, and Claudia Simcoe is sure that the gourmet harvest dinner will wipe away any memories of the unpleasantness last summer. But then the newly installed video surveillance system shows local lawyer Clark Gowan removing something from a hidden compartment in the marketplace walls . . . and Claudia's visit to his office the next day reveals that he's dead, shot with one of his own vintage guns.

The town's new police chief wants to know about the compartment, but she's more interested in the fact that Julie Muller, cheesemaker and one of Claudia's tenants, broke in to Gowan's office the night before he was killed. Concerned for her friend, and also about the revelation that Gowan, who was involved in the sale of the marketplace building, was not entirely on the up and up, Claudia is determined to learn more.

The building's Prohibition-era history offers some clues, and the victim's illegal legal work turns out to have affected a number of people in town. Claudia still has a marketplace to run, and she is more confused than anyone when it comes to her relationship with her neighbor. Still, Claudia thinks she's getting a hand on this investigating thing, until another gruesome death, secrets from her building's past, and a tractor chase make her wonder if she's really ready to reap what she's sown.