Cold-Blooded Myrtle by Elizabeth C. Bunce
An Edgar Award–winning series!
Twelve-year-old Young Lady of Quality and Victorian amateur detective Myrtle Hardcastle returns, and now she’s on the trail of a serial killer in her hometown of Swinburne.
When Mr. Leighton, proprietor of Leighton’s Mercantile, is found dead on the evening his annual Christmas shop display is to be unveiled, it’s clear a killer had revenge in mind. But who would want to kill the local dry-goods merchant? Perhaps someone who remembers the unresolved, long-ago scandal that occurred when he was a professor and archaeologist. When the killer strikes again, each time manipulating the figures in the display to foretell the crime, Myrtle finds herself racing to uncover the long-buried facts of a historical scandal—and the motivations of a modern murderer.
Elizabeth C. Bunce is the Edgar Award-winning author of the Myrtle Hardcastle Mystery series, beginning with Premeditated Myrtle, a 2021 Edgar Allan Poe “Edgar” Award Winner, a Society of Midland Authors Honoree, a Library of Congress 2021 Book Festival Selection, an Amazon Top 20 Children’s Book of the Year for 2020, an Indie Next Pick, and nominee for both the Agatha Award and Anthony Award.
The series continues in How to Get Away with Myrtle (a #1 Amazon New Release) available now, Cold-Blooded Myrtle (arriving October 5, 2021), and In Myrtle Peril (to be published in 2022). Her first novel, A Curse Dark as Gold, won the inaugural William C. Morris Award for a young adult debut novel and was named a Smithsonian Notable Book and an Amelia Bloomer Project selection. Her high fantasy Thief Errant series includes the novels StarCrossed, A Chicago Public Library Best of the Best book for 2010, and Liar’s Moon, one of Kirkus Blog’s Favorite YA Novels of 2011. StarCrossed and A Curse Dark as Gold have appeared on Oprah’s Kids Reading List. Her novels have been named to the ALA’s Best Fiction for Young Adults list, and she is a four-time Kansas Notable Book winner. An accomplished needlewoman and historical costumer, Elizabeth lives in the Midwest with her husband, her cats, and a boggart who steals books.
Check out her website at elizabethcbunce.com.
Confessions of a YA Reader 
I loved the first book in this series and can’t wait to read Elizabeth’s new one. Thanks for featuring it this week. Natalie @ Literary Rambles
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I’m glad you liked the first book. I hope I can pick it up sometime.
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