Final Haul

Marnie Kowalczyk found her first body in a freezer. Her second falls out of Lot 1.

Clean Sweep needs the money, so Marnie takes the biggest job of her life: clear three floors of Venn's Curiosities, a dead man's antique shop in Pruett Falls, Ohio, and auction every last thing in four days. There's an eight-day clock, an owl in a bell jar that her ex-mother-in-law, Dodie, has already claimed, and a Victorian armoire the family swears was Mother's.

On sale morning, in front of half the bidders in the county, the armoire swings open and the auctioneer tumbles out. The doors were locked. The key came from Marnie's binder.

Whatever was inside that armoire, somebody wanted it badly enough to kill for. And now it's gone.

Marnie also has a state investigator asking about a company she never opened, a deputy coroner she'd like to have dinner with and can't, and a January snowstorm rolling in off the river.

Somewhere in Pruett Falls, a killer knows exactly who was holding the key.

A funny, soft-boiled mystery with a closed-door slow burn. Mild language, no gore, and no animals harmed.