What would you say first if you woke beside a body and the murder weapon was in your hand?
Sheila Mitchell faces that question in Tangled Secrets. The dead man is her husband. She had suspected he was hiding something, but finding him murdered puts her in a situation she never imagined.
From the outside, the scene seems to offer a ready explanation. For Sheila, the immediate problem is finding someone willing to look beyond it.
An explanation that comes too easily
There is a particular tension in a story where a character’s account sounds less convincing than the evidence against her. Every attempt to explain can invite another question. A detail that should help may look different to someone who has already made up their mind.
Sheila is a wedding planner, used to arranging things and helping other people’s important days run smoothly. Now she needs her own circumstances examined, and her ex-husband, an FBI agent, becomes part of the effort to clear her name.
That connection adds another complication. These are people with a shared history, facing questions with consequences far beyond an awkward conversation.
Two women, different kinds of danger
Elsewhere in the story, schoolteacher Grace Benson receives a threatening note. She knows someone has singled her out, but she does not know why. Sheila needs to challenge what people think they know; Grace needs to discover what she has not been told.
Their situations give readers different questions to carry through the investigation. Who benefits when suspicion settles quickly? And what happens to the person everyone has decided to blame?
Tangled Secrets is Book 4 in the Mirror Estate series. You can read more about the book here, or visit the Reader Hub for the series reading order.
When a fictional suspect looks obviously guilty, do you believe the evidence or immediately start looking for the setup?