{ "item_title" : "Midnight at Maplebrook", "item_author" : [" M. E. Dorvee "], "item_description" : "Midnight at MaplebrookA Maplebrook Mystery, Book 12The week between Christmas and New Year's is supposed to be the quiet one. In Maplebrook, the lights are still up, the inn is booked, and the old mill has been dressed in silver and winter white for a community countdown. Bookseller Claire Bennett has agreed to lend rare volumes to a Civic Hall fundraiser. Detective Nathan Hale has agreed to wear a suit. Neither of them has agreed on what next year is allowed to look like.Then Elias Mercer arrives. Chairman of the Northern Vermont Heritage Foundation, major donor, and a man who treats generosity like a set of keys. He has come to inspect the antique bell, to sign the grant that would finish the Civic Hall restoration-and to decide which pieces of town history the public will be allowed to read.At 11:42 p.m., the bell rings early.Guests climb the narrow stair and find Mercer dead beside the gears, a brass clock-winding key at his side and his briefcase gone. Inside it, according to Heritage Trust director Lydia March, was the final donor agreement. Others believe it held something older: the original land ledger tied to a family Maplebrook edited out of its own story.The suspects are all dressed for midnight.Lydia March, whose restoration depends on Mercer's terms.Mara Velez, a Burlington attorney with a family claim and no interest in pretending otherwise.Caleb Mercer, the nephew and presumed heir, charming, in debt, and suddenly very practiced at grief.Claire has spent the year learning that quaint and honest are not the same thing. Nathan has spent it learning that protection is not the same thing as partnership. As the town gathers at the gazebo to ring the new year in, they are not standing side by side-and the missing pages in Mercer's ledger may outlive the man who tried to bargain with them.Midnight at Maplebrook is a clean, Hallmark-style cozy mystery set in a small Vermont town: a complete New Year's Eve case, a community that shows up in gowns and wet boots, and a romance that has already said I love you and must now survive a plan made in silence.Perfect for readers of seasonal cozies, small-town whodunits, and winter evenings that end with cocoa instead of a cliffhanger murder scene.Series note: Each Maplebrook mystery stands alone. Returning readers will recognize Claire Bennett, Nathan Hale, Aunt Mabel, Rosie at Sweet Rise, and the Heritage Trust questions that begin in Book 11.", "item_img_path" : "https://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/9/79/816/056/9798160566498_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "18.99", "online_price" : "18.99", "our_price" : "18.99", "club_price" : "18.99", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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