They’re not detectives. They’re just two millennials with a murder to solve. A funny and wholesome mystery, perfect for fans of the Finlay Donovan series.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Grace & Jo Have Never Solved A Murder by Jess Mey, which is out now.
After discovering her boss, Garrett’s, dead body, Grace is ready to pack up her things and move back home. Until his widow, Jo, shows up and offers Grace a job as her assistant.
The catch? Jo only wants assistance with one thing: solving her husband’s murder.
Armed with Jo’s creative “crime board” and various disguises, these two millennial women might just give the police a run for their money.
After all, how hard can solving a murder really be?
EXCERPT
CHAPTER 1
Everything Grace Anderson knew about murder, she learned against her will.
And like many uncomfortable truths, this knowledge tended to work its way into everyday life. While grocery shopping, she’d remember Alaska had more serial killers than any other state. In the middle of a massage, just as the therapist found that knot in her back, she remembered summer was the season when most murders occurred.
So it wasn’t odd that when she saw a barista trip over the outstretched leg of a coworker while waiting for her coffee that morning, her brain went straight to death.
Workplace homicides account for a small number of murders. It’s much more likely to be the spouse.
She couldn’t have known it was foreshadowing.
Her cousin Maya’s fascination with true crime started decades before she ever heard the phrase “true crime.” Crimes of passion had a particular hold on her, so much that Maya’s mom took her to a therapist once when she was worried the obsession was abnormal. She was assured, after being handed a bill for $300, that Maya was a mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy girl who happened to love a good horror story. Eventually, Maya’s obsession paid off – she was a librarian now.
“Grace?” a woman called from behind the counter. Her hair was the same hot pink shade as her lipstick. Grace approached, giving the halfhearted smile of a person who hadn’t yet had enough caffeine for human interaction.
The barista slid a cardboard carrier forward, two drinks inside. She held up a small pastry bag. “You want a raspberry scone? Someone ordered it by accident.”
Not one to turn down free pastries, Grace nodded and thanked the neon-haired woman before slipping a few bills into the tip jar and grabbing her order. The scone was the latest in a string of events that led Grace to feel, intuitively, today would be a good day.
She’d woken up before her alarm. Her messy brown curls were somehow coaxed into a flattering position without her needing to rewash, apply dry shampoo, or throw her hair into a high bun, signaling she’d given up on it. The outfit she set out last night still looked good this morning, a floral blouse with a pair of yoga pants cosplaying as dress slacks. Grace felt there was something empowering about a pair of pants that looked office-appropriate but would allow you to do a split. You know, in an emergency.
Every light on her way to the studio was green, and when she put her playlist on shuffle, the first song to play was “Flavor of the Weak” by American Hi-Fi, a personal favorite. The last two months had been full of transitions, lasts and firsts, but she finally felt like her days were falling into a rhythm.
A downside to her job was that the studio space had no lot, so each day Grace had to battle it out for street parking or give up and park in a public lot a few blocks away. It wasn’t a big deal in summer, but she wasn’t looking forward to trudging through feet of snow for ten minutes in the bitter cold once winter hit. She would pick out a pair of cute snow boots to make the entire thing more bearable.
Philadelphia and its four distinct seasons were still new to Grace.
Miraculously, as she pulled onto the idyllic street that housed the studio, there was a spot right in front. It required her to begrudgingly parallel park, but the cars in front and behind her had graciously left enough space that she maneuvered it without much effort, only a short and shrill grinding sound as her wheel scraped the curb.
She straightened out, shifted into park, and hit the ignition. It was a relatively calm morning in the neighborhood. Several small tables were set up outside the cafe across the street, two occupied with pairs lazily sipping their drinks. In recent days, the air felt like summer and flower bushes were in full bloom, despite the threat of the impending autumn. Today was an exception, sunny with a chill in the air that required a light jacket. Something was mesmerizing about the way the light shone through the leaves on the trees, highlighting the veins fueling them. The trees themselves were spaced evenly down the street, an intricately planned pop of nature. The street looked like it could be on the cover of Small Town Life magazine.
On the right side were two-story stone buildings, several sporting plaques designating them historical sites. On the left side, where the studio was, it was more like a strip mall, with single stories attached five at a time. The stone facade was made to match the much older buildings across the street, and they’d done a pretty good job at making them seem like matching sets.
Grace glanced at the drinks in the carrier perched precariously in the passenger seat of her truck. She believed a coffee order could tell you a lot about someone. Garrett’s macchiato said he was unfussy and straightforward. Her sweet cream cold brew said she was an agreeable people pleaser. It was September 6th and she’d been working for Garrett Baros for exactly a month, to the day. She was still getting a handle on him. She still had a note in her phone with his coffee order in it, in case she forgot.
Grace checked her makeup in her visor mirror, grabbed the coffee and her bag, slipping the scone in its wax paper into it as she climbed out of the truck. The front door was already unlocked, a sign Garrett was already here, as usual. He’d given her a key, but she hadn’t had to use it yet. Inside, she set the cardboard drink carrier on her desk and hung up her jacket and bag on a hook behind her, turned on her laptop to take a look at the time, then slipped Garrett’s drink from the carrier.
She’d expected to find him standing at his easel, staring at a blank canvas thoughtfully or focused so hard on capturing the exact curve of a man’s nose that he didn’t hear her come in. They’d recently gotten word that Garrett had been chosen as a featured artist at the Institute of Contemporary Art downtown. He’d been hard at work putting his spin on the portraits of Philadelphia-born artists who had paved his way.
But the studio was dark.
Each little stroke of luck before nine am had Grace feeling confident and secure in her decisions. She’d upturned her entire life to come here, with no real plan in place, but somehow she stuck the landing. She liked where she lived, what she did, and the independence that came with being thousands of miles from her parents. Life was good. She was making something of herself. It felt like she’d finally hacked the system.
Then at 9:02, she walked through Garrett’s open office door and saw him slumped over his desk, his head resting in a pool of vomit.
She froze for a moment, blinking like it might undo what she was seeing, like the shake of an Etch-A-Sketch. Slowly, each muscle in her body started to tense as she took a few cautious steps along the side of his desk to get a good look at his face, which was slack, eyes open. She didn’t need to check for a pulse to know he was already gone.
So much for trusting her intuition.
