In a picturesque Iowa town, a widow’s dream of quiet living is shattered when her dog discovers a corpse, pulling her into a web of secrets where every neighbor is a suspect and every garden hides a clue. A cozy mystery with gothic undertones... After the death of her husband, Maggie Stone leaves Southern California and returns to her Iowa roots, hoping for peace in the small town of Winslow. She settles into a quaint cottage with her golden retriever, Lily, only to find her idyllic vision shattered by a loose shutter on the vacant Tudor next door—and by the unsettling mystery that begins to unfold. What starts as a quest to fix a noisy shutter turns into a chilling discovery: Lily unearths a shallow grave in the neighbor’s garden. The victim appears to be Larry Holmes, the absent owner of the Tudor. As police swarm the neighborhood, Maggie is drawn into the investigation, navigating a web of secrets among her quirky neighbors—Brenda, the domineering social queen; Thorvald, the enigmatic newcomer with a romantic obsession; and Hollister, a widower with a shadowy past and unexpected charm. When a second body surfaces in the park and incriminating love letters point to Thorvald, suspicion deepens. But Maggie’s instincts—and Lily’s keen nose—suggest a more sinister truth lurking behind Brenda’s saccharine smile. As Maggie digs for answers (sometimes literally), she uncovers a decades-old trail of jealousy, betrayal, and murder that stretches far beyond her quiet street. With humor, suspense, and a sharp eye for small-town dynamics, this cozy mystery explores what happens when “Iowa nice” collides with dark secrets—and how one determined woman and her loyal dog refuse to let a killer go free. About the Author Rose Hamilton-Gottlieb grew up on a 120-acre Iowa farm and spent most of her adult life in California, where she raised two daughters. After becoming a widow in 2014, she moved back to her home state, where she now lives in Ames, Iowa. She received a Bachelor’s degree in English and a Master’s degree in American Studies from California State University. She’s a former college lecturer in History and American Studies. Twenty-nine of her short stories have been published, mostly in small literary journals. A few credits include The Chicago Tribune (as a finalist in the 2006 and 2011 Nelson Algren Awards); and three Papier Mache Press anthologies, At Our Core ; Generation to Generation ; and Grow Old Along with Me the Best is Yet to Be . A short story, called “Aerodynamic Integrity,” based on a chapter in Traveling Light , was published by Papier Mache Press and Aethlon: The Journal of Sports Literature .