It's the 4th of July in the Wisconsin Northwoods, and no one is more excited than Emmy Cooper. She's happy to be back in her hometown, settling once again into small-town living and helping her family run Cooper's Cove, their lake cottage resort. Emmy and her teen crush, police officer Dean Erickson, are enjoying getting reacquainted, while she and bestie Whitney are closer than ever.Lake Covington and its quaint namesake town are bustling with visitors celebrating during the annual three-day Independence Day Freedom Fest. Everything is Yankee Doodle Dandy until a local man with a reputation for trouble starts fireworks of his own. And the explosions just keep on coming when Emmy stumbles over a dead body at the celebrations!The dead man is Jordan James, and as Emmy soon finds out, there are no shortage of people who might want him dead. From a jealous jerk to a conniving cousin and even a former friend from his past, suspects are more plentiful than ants at a July picnic! Despite promises to stay out of the investigation, Emmy finds herself smack in the middle of it. Can she and Whitney figure out the truth and find liberty and justice for all?"I look forward to reading the next Northwoods mystery as soon as possible. A thoroughly enjoyable cozy."~ Kings River Life Magazine"This was a fun book, and I can't wait for the next book in this delightfully entertaining new series that is a welcome addition to the cozy genre."~ Dru's Book Musings Annie McEwen is the author of the Northwoods Mysteries Series, set among the tall pines and sparkling lakes of northern Wisconsin, where she spent her vacations as a kid and now visits her sister and family, who live in the very area she writes about. A former farm kid, Annie and her husband are empty nesters living in their rural Indiana home. Their grown children and two young grandsons live nearby, so they enjoy as much family time as possible. Being grandparents is definitely the best gig ever! They also have four fur babies, one of whom is a very important character in her books. When Annie isn't writing or tackling trash-to-treasure projects, she works as a radiological technologist, aka, she takes pictures of bones...you can't hide much from her! She's a member of Sisters in Crime and loves attending mystery conventions and meeting readers. When Emmy Cooper returns to her family's lake cottage resort, she expects to get a much-needed break... but what she finds instead was a dead body! The pushy land developer wasn't loved in life, and now suspects in his murder seem to be coming out of the woodwork, including Emmy's own father. To clear her dad's name and get to the truth, Emmy must find out who would resort to murder.
