Megan Rivers Livres

During Alton Oak’s Fall Festival, Charli Parker and her new friend, Rip Oakley, discover that the scarecrow in the center of the corn maze is actually a dead body: Charli’s ex-husband, Jackson. While Charli tries to figure out why Jackson was in town and how he ended up dead on a stake in the corn maze, life becomes a nightmare for Charli’s best friend, Sadie, as she becomes the prime suspect in the murder. Since town deputy and old friend, Jake Vega, seems to be giving Charli the cold shoulder, it’s up to Charli to prove her best friend innocent, uncover Jackson’s killer, and truly find out The Scarecrow’s Secrets.

When Charli Parker is asked to do some substitute teaching at the local elementary school during the last few days of the semester, she jumps at the chance to get her foot into the local school system. However, her joy changes to terror when she discovers the body of one of the teachers hanging from a rope over her desk. It looks like suicide, but why would the delightful Ms. Dempsey want to kill herself? She was getting married in a few days and all her students loved her. Nosy Charli suspects foul play and is determined to investigate even though the by-the-book principal is always in her way.With the help of her good friend Sadie and a friend on the police force, Charli starts snooping, only to discover that someone doesn't want her nosing around. When another body turns up in the school parking lot, Charli's theory that Ms. Dempsey's supposed suicide is actually murder gathers momentum and Charli's detecting may just put her in the path of a killer desperate to cover their tracks.

When marital woes cause Charli May Parker to pack up and leave her husband and her life in New Mexico, and return to her childhood home of Alton Oaks, Illinois, little does she know that she is walking directly into a murder investigation. No sooner is she settled into her parents' house, trying to catch up with her long-time friend Sadie, but she happens to overhear a heated conversation between a clerk and a young man outside of the local grocery store. She doesn't give it much thought until the next day when the young woman's body is found in the store--having been stabbed multiple times. Murder is a foreign concept to Charli's hometown of Alton Oaks. And, as it turns out, another of Charli's childhood friends, Jake, is now a local detective and is charged with investigating the girl's murder, stimulating Charli's interest. As Charli mulls over how and when to tell her family about her broken marriage, she is caught up in local gossip about the recent crime. Her own curiosity kicks in and she decides to find out for herself just what happened to the young grocery clerk, much to the chagrin of her family, friends, and Detective Jake. But Charli is determined, just as is the conniving killer who is also determined to prevent her from solving the mystery of the MURDER IN AISLE THREE.

While fighting through the grief and depression of her late husband's death, Charli has taken her hobby of photography and turned it into a job, freelancing for the town newspaper and setting up a holiday studio in the Oakie Doughkie Bakery & Gift Shop. During the town's Polar Plunge fundraiser for the children's hospital, the granddaughter of Oakie Doughkie's owner, Maddie, is found dead in the canal. As Charli spends each day with the family of the deceased, she uncovers reasons why Maddie would have committed suicide even though she's sure it's murder. On top of all of that, she discovers some of her great-great grandfather's secrets during a renovation of the Alton house, including a journal that has Charli thinking about his unsolved murder.