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Zusatztext "Malmont does a fine job of creating atmosphere...and Tori makes a resourceful heroine." -- The Roanoke Times and World-News "Valerie S. Malmont's sense of humor is crisp and Tori Miracle is good fun." -- The Courier-Journal (Louisville! Ky.) Informationen zum Autor Valerie S. Malmont Klappentext When a quaint Pennsylvania town hosts a Civil War reenactment! only the blood will be real.... How does a once-hip New Yorker get used to living in a quaint Pennsylvania town famous for its gooey! oversized sticky buns? For Tori Miracle! it means kissing her diet good-bye! always showing up in the wrong clothes! and struggling with a love life. And now that she's filling in for the editor of the Lickin Creek Chronicle and has the town newspaper to look after as well as her own dear fastidious felines! sometimes it means cosponsoring public events like a Civil War reenactment for the local women's college. But when this charmingly authentic reenactment is done! and each man and woman has played his or her part to the hilt! it's clear that Tori has miscalculated again. Someone used one live bullet in an antique gun. And with a man dead! it's going to be up to the only city slicker in Lickin Creek to unravel a mystery of murder in a town where calories don't count! but murder does.... A Friday in October RESERVED FOR EDITOR. After only a week on the job, it still gave me a thrill to park in front of the sign. Granted, I'd only taken the job as editor of the Lickin Creek Chronicle on a temporary basis to help out P.J. Mullins while she recovered from major surgery; granted, I didn't have the foggiest idea of how to run a small-town weekly newspaper; and granted, the paper only had two full-time employees, including me, plus a few freelance writers, and a delivery staff all under the age of twelve. None of that mattered; for the present I was The Editor for whom the space was reserved, and that was a necessary ego boost for me, Tori Miracle, recovering journalist and mid-list author. I couldn't find the key to the back door, even though I was sure I had dropped it in my purse last night when I left. But that was okay; I preferred using the front entrance. Maybe someone I knew would see me--the editor--going in. With the hem of my sleeve, I wiped a smudge off the little brass plaque on the front door that said the building had been constructed in 1846. Last week, as my first official duty, I'd polished it with Brasso until it gleamed. Inside, the little waiting room stretched the entire width of the building, almost twelve feet. The furniture was red vinyl with chrome arms, dating from the forties, two chairs and a couch, and an imitation-maple coffee table that held an empty ashtray and a pink plastic vase full of dusty plastic daisies. "Morning," I called out as I hung my blue linen blazer on a hook behind the door. Cassie Kriner came out of the back office. "Good morning, Tori. Can you believe this weather?" "Is it unusual?" I asked. "Sorry, keep forgetting you aren't local. Yes, it's very unusual for this late in October. Almost like summer." In the office we shared, she handed me a mug of coffee. I took one sip to be polite and put it down on the edge of my rolltop desk. As always, it was dreadful, but I hadn't quite worked up the courage to tell her so. "You had a phone call this morning. From a Dr. Washabaugh. She wants you to call her back." "Thanks, I will." "Nothing wrong, I hope?" "Of course not. She's probably just calling to tell me I'm fine." I smiled reassuringly, but inside I was feeling a little alarm. Would a doctor really bother to call if the tests were all okay? "She said to call her back, Tori." "There's no urgency." I hoped I sounded less concerned than I felt. Last week, at the urging, no, na...
