Murder at Brindlehook Inn
(2026)(The first book in the Brindlehook Inn Mystery series)
A novel by Claire Bessey
When former Seattle hotel manager Cassie Vale inherits the crumbling Brindlehook Inn on the stormy Washington coast, she expects a fresh start, a mountain of repair bills, and maybe enough peace to recover from a failed romance and a career that left her burned out.
Instead, she gets a dead contractor in the old laundry room.
Cassie barely has time to understand the inn’s leaking roof, closed-off rooms, unpaid invoices, and strange old guest records before contractor Nolan Rusk is found dead inside the property. The scene looks like an accident at first, but the details do not fit. The ladder is wrong. The floor has been cleaned. The repair estimate has been changed. And worst of all, Cassie’s uncle Patrick Vale had argued with Nolan shortly before his death.
Now Patrick is the easiest suspect in Brindlehook Harbor, and Cassie is not about to let the town bury the truth under gossip, civic smiles, and polite lies.
With the help of Fig, the inn’s one-eyed tortoiseshell cat with a talent for stealing suspicious objects, Cassie begins digging through old invoices, hidden notes, room keys, and family secrets. But the deeper she looks, the clearer it becomes that Nolan’s murder is not only about one crooked repair job. Someone has been using old properties, false estimates, and historic preservation money to hide something much larger.
Brindlehook Harbor may look like a charming seaside town filled with weathered cottages, cozy kitchens, local festivals, and friendly neighbors, but Cassie quickly learns that small towns can keep ugly secrets very well. Some people want the inn sold. Some want the past left untouched. And one of them is willing to kill to keep Cassie from finding out what her great-aunt Junie knew before she died.
Murder at Brindlehook Inn is the first book in The Brindlehook Inn Mysteries, a clean coastal cozy mystery series featuring a historic inn, small-town secrets, amateur sleuthing, light romance, old records, renovation trouble, and a clever one-eyed cat who keeps finding clues no one else sees.
Perfect for readers who enjoy clean cozy mysteries, coastal small-town mysteries, innkeeper amateur sleuths, mystery series with cats, historic inn mysteries, seaside murder mysteries, family secrets, and cozy mysteries with recipes.
At Brindlehook Inn, every room has a view, every guest has a secret, and the cat always finds what someone tried to hide.
Genre: Mystery
Instead, she gets a dead contractor in the old laundry room.
Cassie barely has time to understand the inn’s leaking roof, closed-off rooms, unpaid invoices, and strange old guest records before contractor Nolan Rusk is found dead inside the property. The scene looks like an accident at first, but the details do not fit. The ladder is wrong. The floor has been cleaned. The repair estimate has been changed. And worst of all, Cassie’s uncle Patrick Vale had argued with Nolan shortly before his death.
Now Patrick is the easiest suspect in Brindlehook Harbor, and Cassie is not about to let the town bury the truth under gossip, civic smiles, and polite lies.
With the help of Fig, the inn’s one-eyed tortoiseshell cat with a talent for stealing suspicious objects, Cassie begins digging through old invoices, hidden notes, room keys, and family secrets. But the deeper she looks, the clearer it becomes that Nolan’s murder is not only about one crooked repair job. Someone has been using old properties, false estimates, and historic preservation money to hide something much larger.
Brindlehook Harbor may look like a charming seaside town filled with weathered cottages, cozy kitchens, local festivals, and friendly neighbors, but Cassie quickly learns that small towns can keep ugly secrets very well. Some people want the inn sold. Some want the past left untouched. And one of them is willing to kill to keep Cassie from finding out what her great-aunt Junie knew before she died.
Murder at Brindlehook Inn is the first book in The Brindlehook Inn Mysteries, a clean coastal cozy mystery series featuring a historic inn, small-town secrets, amateur sleuthing, light romance, old records, renovation trouble, and a clever one-eyed cat who keeps finding clues no one else sees.
Perfect for readers who enjoy clean cozy mysteries, coastal small-town mysteries, innkeeper amateur sleuths, mystery series with cats, historic inn mysteries, seaside murder mysteries, family secrets, and cozy mysteries with recipes.
At Brindlehook Inn, every room has a view, every guest has a secret, and the cat always finds what someone tried to hide.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Claire Bessey's Murder at Brindlehook Inn