Claudia Bishop listed the cast of characters at the beginning of the book and also includes recipes and ornament tips from the "Inn at Hemlock Falls" at the end of the book. These extra "touches" added to the book and I found them to be helpful and enjoyable additions to the story.

A Carol For A Corpse is the fourteenth book in the Hemlock Falls mystery series.

Quill and Meg, the Quilliam sisters, run the Inn at Hemlock Falls, located in upstate New York. Quill runs the Inn and Meg, who is the finest cook in a three hundred mile radius, prepares meals for the lodgers. Business has been slow for several months and the Quilliam sisters are struggling financially. On the brink of bankruptcy, they are grateful to see a light at the end of the tunnel and even more grateful it is not an oncoming train.

L'Aperitif gourmet magazine editor Lydia Kingsfield wants to use the Inn as background for the magazine and film four TV shows from the Inn each year. This provides a big, fat check for the Inn and couldn't have come at a more crucial time.

With the check from Kingsfield Publishing, Quill is able to get caught up on paying some pressing bills. But because of the debt they are in the Quilliam sisters are forced to entertain an examiner, sent by the bank to see how the sisters are running things and to offer suggestions for improving business at the Inn. The consultant, Albert "Scrooge" McWhirter, is from the office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

If they don't take at least some of the recommendations by the "Scrooge" he'll tell the bank to call the loan. And the first recommendation he makes to Quill is that she fire herself along with half of her staff.

Things turn ugly when Lydia's husband, Zeke "The Hammer" Kingsfield, a big time real-estate mogul scams the residents of the local trailer park and leaves them out in the cold - literally.

When Zeke is found dead at the bottom of a ski trail it's assumed to have been a tragic accident. Quill and Meg believe it was murder. Lydia, Zeke's widow, is already in the process of suing Quill and Meg for every nickel they don't have. It's up to Quill and Meg to investigate and prove this is no accident, to save themselves from a lawsuit and to save their Inn's reputation.

Reviews of other titles in this series

Buried by Breakfast, No 12
A Carol For A Corpse, No 14
Dread on Arrival, No 17