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Three for Pumpkin Pie? (Kirk Lake Camp #3)

Author: Series: Publication Date:
March 2018
Holiday/Season/Special Event:
Thanksgiving

Owning and operating a cottage resort in a peaceful northern Ontario setting should be a piece of cake for a former police detective. Families should be happy to be on a vacation in rustic log cabins set among acres of old-growth pines along a vast shoreline of a clean lake ideal for swimming, boating and fishing. It should and they should, is what goes through the mind of this former detective turned resort owner every time a guest shows up and havoc reigns. Not only are the trees too sappy, too messy, too numerous, the mosquitoes and black flies are too many and too pesky, the cabins are too rustic with too few luxuries, with too few televisions (as in none) and too expensive, the other guests are too loud, too drunk, too close, too present, the air temperature is too hot or too cold or too windy or not windy enough, the lake is too cold or too rough, with too few pikerel and bass, the wolf howls are too scary and too close, the black bears are too smelly and too scary and too close, the water snakes too skittish and scary and too close, the garter snakes too, too, too close, the red squirrels and blue jays too chattery and bossy and too close, and the guests own families are too obnoxious, too stressful, too close. It's enough to make the former detective turned resort owner want to head south back to a dark alley in the north end Hamilton to chase a criminal in a hoodie (always a hoodie), with a gun, who is too scary, too mean, too drunk, too stoned, too hilarious, too stupid, and too close. But instead, the former detective turned resort owner stays put and cleans toilets, cuts wood, sells gas, worms and ice, rents fishing boats and canoes and cottages, smiles at guests, and helps the local O.P.P. solve murder in the north on the resort, because every time guests show up, someone gets killed. It was the last busy week-end of the season and Charlene had lots of work to do to cook the dinner, cater to her guests and close up the cottages for the winter. The trouble was, her best friend Sarah decided to stay at Charlene's and avoid her relationship woes. The trouble was, one of the guests was murdered. What a mess. Sarah invited Charlene's former lover to Thanksgiving dinner without asking her first. Sarah was known to stick her nose into business that wasn't hers but she was a detective after all and that's what detectives did best. So instead of just her and Sarah at the table, Joe would be the third. The trouble was, Charlene was thinking a lot about Jim.