Buttons and Foes

A dry cleaner-turned-amateur sleuth uncovers “surprising answers” to the murder of one of her beloved customers in this “cozy crowd-pleaser” (Publishers Weekly).

Learning her dear friend and valued customer Thelma Chadwick is dead is one thing, but when Denver dry cleaner Mandy Dyer discovers the sweet old woman left her a cryptic message and a bag of clothes that Mandy has never seen—nor cleaned—she is awash in suspicion. Thelma knew Mandy had a hand in solving mysteries in town—Was she asking Mandy to use her sleuthing skills to find her killer? And if so, were the unusual buttons that covered the dresses Thelma left in her care some kind of clue?

With the local police calling poor Thelma’s death an accident, Mandy knows she’s not going to get any dirt out of her detective ex-boyfriend. So Mandy takes what she knows to a local gumshoe—only to discover the PI is none other than the boy Mandy stood up in high school. Not one to let his grown-up good looks knock the starch out of her, Mandy hires Travis to help, figuring that if they find a murderer together, who knows what the future holds? But will the witnesses button their lips, or will the truth about Thelma’s demise come out in the wash?

Praise for Dolores Johnson and the Mandy Dyer Mysteries

“Delightful. Good, clean fun.” —Dorothy Cannell, author of The Thin Woman

“Dolores Johnson writes with wit and panache. I love her sense of humor.” —Diane Mott Davidson, New York Times–bestselling author of the Goldy Bear Culinary Mysteries