Murder at the Altar (Ellie Quicke Mysteries)

The first in a series of Ellie Quicke Mysteries, based in a church setting, and featuring a recently widowed woman who finds herself to be something of a sleuth. This first mystery finds Ellie struggling to find her place in life after the recent death of her husband. Approaching 50, she has an uncertain air, but there is something very capable about her that lurks beneath her understated prettiness. In this mystery, she gets to know her neighbour, a young woman who has had an affair with the victim of a brutal muder that has taken place in the parish church. This glamorous, but fretful woman soon becomes the prime suspect. As Ellie begins to weigh up the strange goings-on in the neighbourhood -- a young boy who has seen more than he cares to tell, a car that lurks nearby, stories gossiped at the local shops -- she gets nearer to the truth of the drugs dealing at the root of it all. And soon her own life is under threat.