Book #1 in the Cecil and Winks series

Murder Laughs Last

His retirement plans didn’t include a headless corpse

Would-be mystery writer Cecil Appleby has plotted the perfect retirement – enjoying his collection of Golden Age mystery novels, his plants and his adored cat. The plan crumbles as soon as it starts when his historic home in a cozy village yields a fresh corpse that has misplaced its head.

Instead of quiet and privacy he has media vans on his doorstep. Squabbling law enforcement agencies look in all the wrong places. They think Cecil’s trips for the Agriculture Department were cover for covert assignments. They go after the hapless real estate agent who sold Cecil his corpse-yielding house sight unseen. They even target his savvy young housekeeper, Winks, because she has a juvenile record. Indignant at the injustice and bureaucracy, Cecil sets out to find the real killer.

As the determined amateur sleuth investigates, he develops unexpected and unlikely friendships, from a razor-sharp local news blogger fired by her own son, to residents of a halfway house, to a scrappy retired professor who appoints himself Cecil’s sidekick. But Cecil’s skill at unearthing clues and upending alibis sets him on a collision course with the sword-wielding killer. Will Cecil be able to keep his own head firmly attached?