Hadley Carroll Mysteries

Quilter Hadley Carroll thinks her life can't get any worse after being demoted from reporter to newspaper courier and having her fiance, Matt Ackerman, dump her without explanation. But then, while chucking a sack of newspapers into the Ohio River in Paducah, Kentucky-known as Quilt City-she finds Matt's body snagged under the transient dock. She knows she'll never find peace if she doesn't figure out why he left her and who killed him, so she gets to work.

After performing a daring rescue of a fellow quilter during a robbery at a Walmart in Paducah, Kentucky, also known as Quilt City, journalist and mayoral candidate Hadley Carroll vows to bring the perpetrators to justice after the heist turns tragic. Then, a seemingly unrelated murder and two ominous messages cause Hadley to ask the staff at Paducah Pulse, her weekly newspaper, to find answers. Amid the turmoil, Hadley and Detective Brandon Green finally enjoy their first date at Barbecue on the River, the city's largest annual event, only for mayhem to disrupt the festivities.

During a weekly Paducah Quilters Quorum session, Hadley worries about her looming deadline for the cookbook she's writing, the pain her best friend is in, her depressed young housemate, and the Paducah mayoral race she's favored to win against her nemesis—corrupt businessman Nick Stoddard. Then she learns that fellow quilter Donna considers the death of a coworker to be suspicious. Adding to her concerns, Hadley will meet the family of her beau, Detective Brandon Green, that night, and her younger sister, Jenny, will arrive for a visit, bringing three kinds of trouble with her.

In this fifth installment of the award-winning Hadley Carroll Mysteries, Hadley consoles her friend and fellow quilter, Dakota, after the defense attorney is injured and a bystander is killed in front of Dakota's law office in Paducah, Kentucky, the Quilt Capital of the World. Hadley and her staff at the Paducah Pulse newspaper must report on the murder, but a severe ice storm renders investigation impossible when power lines collapse and cell towers freeze. She hunkers with her friends and staff in the Pulse office after the governor issues a shelter-in-place order.