Alpine Decoy [Mass Market Paperback]

The fact that her ex-lover, father of her son Adam, Tom Cavanaugh will be there makes the decision much more difficult. Even though this bum left her pregnant to go back with his pregnant wife, who he married for her money twenty years ago, Emma still thinks she's in love with him. And now that his wife is looney and his other kids are a mess, Tom suddenly decides he wants to have a relationship with their college student son.

Meanwhile, there is a new woman in town. African-American, Marilynn Lewis who is the new nurse for Dr's Dewey and Flake.
She's living with the Campbells, a prominant local family, but that doesn't stop a local bigot from sending her hate mail.

Things get worse when an unknown African-American male stumbles into Marlow Whipp's grocery store and drops dead on the floor from a bullet.

Who is the man, why would he be in Alpine and who would want to kill him?

Emma puts on her sleuthing hat to try and uncover the mystery, including discovering that:

The victim, Kelvin Greene from Seattle is the boyfriend of Marilynn's former roommate Winola.

Marilynn's former boyfriend Jerome was murdered.

The supposed murderer, Wesley Charles has escaped from prison.

Then Wesley Charles also shows up dead in Alpine.

Who else but Marilynn could have killed him? Unless, it has something to do with the strange goings on at Marlow Whipp's grocery store. How can he stay in business when only teenagers come into his store? What is he actually selling besides pop & candy?

Milo Dodge, the sheriff seems more interested in locating the stolen local high school mascot than in solving the two murders. So Emma feels she has to continually prod him along.

Meanwhile, Carla has new apartment and Libby a new roommate, but she's still as ditzy as ever. Ed Bronsky, the advertising manager still doesn't want to sell advertisement. After all, why advertise groceries, people have to eat so they'll always go to your store anyway.

And Vida Runkel the house & home reporter, who is related to and knows every one in town continues to help.

I enjoyed the story, although I did figure out the killer, but couldn't figure out the motive. It's not quite as good as the earlier books, but still more enjoyable than most series.

Highlight of the story: While a couple of hikers are leading them to the location of the second body, Milo grabs and kisses Emma. Not quite the proper setting but at least it's a start.

Lowlight of the story. The last page. After you read it, you can read my review on the earlier books and know what I'm talking about, don't want to spoil anything.

Looking forward to the next book, Alpine Escape.