Kiss My Axe

A dead man walking. An axe festival. Only one of these was on her itinerary.

Verona flew to the tiny Irish village of Dalkerry for one reason: Jian. Specifically, the six months of unfinished business between her pants and his. The man owes her—after months of acting like a chaste virgin ready for sacrifice, she’s finally collecting with interest.

What she was not planning to collect is a murder case. And yet. Dead men shouldn’t walk into bars, but Sean Hunter makes the world’s worst joke a reality. He’s been dead for five years. Presumed, anyway. His wife is engaged to his best friend, and Dalkerry’s been thriving, frankly. His return is as welcome as a sunburn in Ireland, and with an axe festival in town, the tension was bound to come to a head.

An axe actually landing in some poor bastard’s skull? Slightly more surprising. The second one even more so. Now Verona’s got two axe-related homicides, a suspect list longer than an Irish winter, and an inconvenient suspicion about Jian—who she really needs to not be guilty. Mostly so she can be sure she’s not screwing a murderer.

This killer picked the wrong village to get clever in. And the wrong private dick to underestimate.