The Last Canvas
(2026)(The second book in the Delgado Files Cozy Mystery series)
A novel by Widdy Thorne
Sofie Delgado has finally caught her breath after the case that nearly cost her everything — and after one unfinished kiss with Detective Rafe Navarro that neither of them has worked up the nerve to talk about.
Then a backhoe breaks ground on a new development and unearths a secret Sugarloaf has kept for thirty years: the remains of Dolores "Dolly" Marchetti, a reclusive painter everyone assumed had simply left town chasing her big break.
She never left at all.
A tarnished locket. A false-backed canvas. A ledger written in a code only Dolly would understand. The clues point straight at a respected local gallery owner who's spent three decades quietly profiting off a dead woman's talent — and who isn't about to let anyone take it from him twice.
With her sisters bribed into cracking the cipher, her best friend unknowingly living beside a piece of the puzzle, and Rafe determined to keep her safe and finally say what he's been holding back, Sofie has one more mystery to solve before she can let herself have the one thing she's been too careful to want.
Some paintings hide more than brushstrokes. Some silences only last as long as someone lets them.
The Last Canvas in Sugarloaf is the newest entry in the cozy Sugarloaf Mystery Series — equal parts puzzle-box mystery and slow-burn romance, for readers who like their small towns charming, their clues literal, and their detectives worth the wait.
Genre: Mystery
Then a backhoe breaks ground on a new development and unearths a secret Sugarloaf has kept for thirty years: the remains of Dolores "Dolly" Marchetti, a reclusive painter everyone assumed had simply left town chasing her big break.
She never left at all.
A tarnished locket. A false-backed canvas. A ledger written in a code only Dolly would understand. The clues point straight at a respected local gallery owner who's spent three decades quietly profiting off a dead woman's talent — and who isn't about to let anyone take it from him twice.
With her sisters bribed into cracking the cipher, her best friend unknowingly living beside a piece of the puzzle, and Rafe determined to keep her safe and finally say what he's been holding back, Sofie has one more mystery to solve before she can let herself have the one thing she's been too careful to want.
Some paintings hide more than brushstrokes. Some silences only last as long as someone lets them.
The Last Canvas in Sugarloaf is the newest entry in the cozy Sugarloaf Mystery Series — equal parts puzzle-box mystery and slow-burn romance, for readers who like their small towns charming, their clues literal, and their detectives worth the wait.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Widdy Thorne's The Last Canvas