Cold as Ice by Julie Mulhern

Secrets have a way of coming to the surface when you least expect them, especially at social gatherings. How could Ellison Russell know that someone setting a couch on fire would start off a chain reaction that would lead to murder?

Ellison is trying hard to stay away from dead bodies, although she is seriously considering grounding her daughter Grace until she’s thirty. But when the body of Laurie Michaels, the mother of Grace’s boyfriend, is found in the freezer of he country club, Ellison has no choice but to get involved. Loans given to Laurie’s husband Tom by the bank run by Ellison’s dead husband are threatening Grace’s inheritance. Either Ellison investigates or risk losing everything for her daughter’s future.

As if things aren’t complicated enough, her mother is threatening to ruin Thanksgiving (just by showing up), Ellison’s sister-in-law arrives with a big surprise, and Anarchy Jones, the police detective who has won Ellison’s heart, has made her promise not to investigate the murder. What’s a girl to do?

The latest installment in the Country Club Murders is just as delightful as the previous ones. I read this one twice because I enjoyed it so much. There were things I missed the first time I read that shocked me the second time through. Julie Mulhern does a wonderful job of delving into the different relationship dynamics: between Ellison and Grace, and Ellison and her own mother. This case will test the bonds of all of Ellison’s relationships, but will murder cost her more than she can bear to pay? As Ellison says, “Forgiveness can be a long time coming.” If this is the first book you have read of Mulhern’s series, I strongly recommend you go back and read the rest of them. They are fantastic!