Foul Play at Four (Lois Meade Mystery)

She’s worked through all the days of the week, turning up clues and scrubbing up both messes and murderers in the village of Long Farnden. But crime is a persistent stain, and Lois Meade is finding that sleuthing is rarely a spotless endeavor...

Magistrate Mrs. Tollervey-Jones represents the upper crust of the village, although nowadays she lives alone at the Farnden Hall estate without a staff to attend to her. Fortunately, Lois Meade’s cleaning company visits twice a week.

But Lois’s help is needed elsewhere as a series of robberies begins to plague Long Farnden. Lois’s own daughter is shaken when a thief robs her grocery store till. Good thing Josie’s got a policeman for a fiancé—he’s on the culprit’s trail soon afterward.

Before he can crack the case, though, someone cracks Lois’s husband on the head when he stops in to check on Mrs. Tollervey-Jones and interrupts a burglary. Now Lois—in collaboration once again with the besotted Inspector Cowgill—must determine who cleaned out the magistrate’s mansion, and clean up after an increasingly violent crime spree…