DATING CAN BE DEADLY

Amish and English worlds collide when the murder of a quilt competition judge places a possible witness in danger.

Millie Fisher and her closest friend, Lois Henry, are like chalk and cheese. But somehow the pairing of the Amish matchmaker and her purple-spiked-haired best friend works, maybe because the two share the same sense of justice in a sometimes troubled world. Though Millie is close to God and her Amish community, her penchant for solving mysteries means that she’s allowed certain modern affordances, like a phone line, that help keep her safe in her informal investigations. And investigations always seem to find Millie and Lois. The latest is the murder of Tara Barron, the difficult head judge of the local fair’s quilt competition, a competition in which Millie has entered a beautiful wedding-ring quilt. Millie knows that murder doesn’t discriminate among communities, so she and Lois use their separate connections to find a potential motive, while Lois tries not to get sidetracked by her own potential love matches. Being 68 makes Lois even more keenly aware of her desire for a partner, whereas Millie’s age and experience as a widow makes her nervous about finding a new man, even though Lois keeps pointing out that their longtime friend Uriah Schrock is interested in Millie as a match. As the investigation into Tara’s death intensifies, Millie meets Zach Troyer, a young Amish boy, and his beloved Pygmy goat, Scooter, whose presence at the fair may make them valuable witnesses to the crime—so long as Millie can keep them safe long enough for Zach to tell his story.

A melding of Amish culture with a traditional cozy, with a cute goat to boot.