The Corpse in Oozak's Pond

A copycat crime on Groundhog Day brings out Professor Peter Shandys inner sleuth in this Edgar Award finalist from the international bestselling author. The rural town of Balaclava greets Groundhog Day as an excuse for one last cold-weather fling. The students and faculty of the local agricultural college drink cocoa, throw snowballs, and when the temperature allows, ice skate. But Oozaks Pond is not quite frozen this year, and as the celebrations reach their peak, the students see someone bobbing through the ice. Long past help, the drowning victim is badly decomposed and dressed in an old-fashioned frock coat with a heavy rock in each pocket. First on the scene is Peter Shandy, horticulturalist andwhen the college requires itdetective. But solving this nineteenth-century murder mystery will take more than Shandys knack for growing rutabagas. Relying on his wifes expertise in local history, the professor dives headfirst into a gilded-age whodunit that cloaks secrets potent enough to kill.