Local author Len Boswell has just released his second mystery set in Berkeley Springs, The Apple Butter Murders, featuring detectives Eleanor Rigby Beaumont and Billy Skye.
Rigby, now a resident of Berkeley Springs, comes out of retirement to help Skye with a baffling crime. Four bodies have been found at the Apple Butter Festival, and there seems to be no shortage of suspects, from family members to a real-estate investor to any one of 40,000 people passing by in the swirl of the festival.
Apple Butter Murders
Were the murders crimes of passion? Cold-blooded killings? Spree killings? The work of a serial killer?
Rigby and Billy follow the evidence, looking for motive and opportunity and any clue that will lead them to the killer or killers. But as they narrow the pool of suspects, startling events lead them in a new direction. But is it the right direction?
“Berkeley Springs is the perfect town for a cozy mystery series,” says Boswell. “We have everything here: Parks, restaurants, shops, the spa, and a ton of things to see and do. The Apple Butter Festival is just one example.”
The new book follows book one in the series, The Water Detective. Both books are available on Amazon and at Creekside Provisions & Supplies.
Len Boswell is the author of 26 books, including three award-winning series, The Simon Grave Mysteries, The Chronicles of Randall (epic fantasy), and The Pale Chronicles (historical fantasy), as well as additional works of fiction and nonfiction. He lives in Berkeley Springs with his wife, Ruth, and their adopted beagle, Daisy, who doubles as muse and manuscript shredder.
He attended his first Apple Butter Festival in 2012. His favorite part was watching the apple butter being made and going home with the still-warm jars of sweet stuff.
“And now, fourteen years later, I would kill for it – in a murder mystery,” he said.
