Crafts and Life

Mulbridge House stood, silent and decaying, deep in the woods at the heart of Oakwood, Ohio, long before the passing of Augusta Mulbridge. Yet suddenly everyone in town seems to have a stake in its fate: the greedy heirs, eager to tear it down for a tidy profit; the local preservationists, determined to maintain it as an historic site; the angry neighbors, staunchly opposed to the construction of a modern subdivision. Even Charley Carpenter is forced to admit that her beloved shop, Old Hat Vintage Fashions, could use an infusion of the estate’s treasures.

The trouble begins when Charley walks into auctioneer Calvin Prescott’s office to find her cherished family friend crumpled on the floor. Detective Marcus Trenault quickly connects his death to a string of increasingly violent burglaries plaguing Oakwood. But when Charley uncovers a link to a massive land swindle worth millions, not to mention a drug ring operating out of the manor’s abandoned outbuildings, that theory crumbles faster than Mulbridge House. Now Charley’s racing to catch a killer before everything falls apart.

Murder hits too close to home for Charley Carpenter in this second outing in Oakwood.

The local auctioneer, Calvin Prescott, has been her mentor as well as one of her Dad's good friends, when his auction house is given the job of selling off the contents of a local large house (Mulbridge House) before it is demolished Calvin has held back some quality clothing and accessories to give Charley first chance at them (and she jumps at the chance), she does go to the general sale as well and sees some odd behaviour from a group of ladies that call themselves SOAP (an acronym re preserving Oakwood's history), they claim there is a will leaving the building to SOAP and that the sale is therefore illegal, but they cannot produce the will, nor indeed did Calvin or his staff find any such thing when they packed everything up. The problems start arising when Charley and her good friend Dmitri go to collect the boxes from Calvin's Auction rooms, only to find him well and truly dead.

Now Charley is sidestepping around Dectective Marcus Trenault (her boyfriend) to try and find out the truth, and all roads lead not to Rome on this occasion but Mulbridge House as a spider web of deceit starts to be uncovered.