Meg Carson was a criminal mastermind. Fierce, intelligent, and now in prison for the rest of her life. Driven by a need to control everyone and everything, and to be worshipped and obeyed, she had killed, and she had left ruination in her wake. I hoped all truths would come out, but much of the damage done couldn’t be undone. I was more sickened than fascinated by her, and I had no desire to ever see her again.
“Where’re your thoughts?” Tom asked as he came back over to my side of the bar.
“On you,” I said in my best flirtatious voice.
Tom laughed. I wasn’t very good with flirtatious voices.
“Here, I’d like you tae try something.” He reached under the bar and pulled out a shot glass and set it in front of me.
“Oh. What is it?” I asked, still not into the Scottish spirit of drinking.
“Just try it,” he said with a smile.
“You have amazing eyes,” I said as I lifted the glass.
He reached out and stopped my hands from making it all the way to my mouth. “You need tae stop looking at my eyes, as much as I enjoy looking right back at yours, and look at the glass.”
I did.
“What?!” I proclaimed.
“Marry me?” he said so casually that I almost asked him to repeat it.
Rodger appeared over his shoulder. “I told him this was not the right way.”
“Rodger,” Tom said. “This is perfect.”
A ring took up the space that a good shot of Scottish whisky normally would have. I had to blink away a million tears to see it clearly, and stop myself from hyperventilating to say anything else.
“We’re in my pub, soon tae be hopefully ours, where we had our first date. Delaney had no idea this was coming,” Tom said, but he looked at me, not Rodger. “She’ll never forget it.”
He took my hands in his. I was still holding the glass. “I love you, Delaney Nichols, from Kansas in America. Marry me. Please.” He fished out the ring and placed it on my shaking finger.
“Well?” Rodger asked.
I sniffed and wiped my nose with the hand that didn’t have the ring.
“Tom was right,” I said. “This is perfect.”
Someone must have scored another goal, because more cheering ensued.
THE VICTIMS OF WILLIAM BURKE AND WILLIAM HARE
Joseph the Miller
Abigail Simpson
An Englishman
An old woman
Mary Paterson
Effie
A drunk woman
An old woman and her deaf grandson
Mrs. Ostler
Ann McDougal
Mary Haldane
Peggy Haldane
James Wilson
Mary Docherty
ALSO BY PAIGE SHELTON
SCOTTISH BOOKSHOP MYSTERY SERIES
The Cracked Spine
Of Books and Bagpipes
A Christmas Tartan (a mini-mystery)
COUNTRY COOKING SCHOOL MYSTERY SERIES
If Fried Chicken Could Fly
If Mashed Potatoes Could Dance
If Bread Could Rise to the Occasion
If Catfish Had Nine Lives
If Onions Could Spring Leeks
FARMERS MARKET MYSTERY SERIES
Farm Fresh Murder
Fruit of All Evil
Crops and Robbers
Red Hot Deadly Peppers
A Killer Maize
Merry Market Murder
Bushel Full of Murder
DANGEROUS TYPE MYSTERY SERIES
To Helvetica and Back
Bookman Dead Style
Comic Sans Murder
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PAIGE SHELTON had a nomadic childhood, as her father’s job as a football coach took the family to seven different towns before she was even twelve years old. After college at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, she moved to Salt Lake City, where she thought she’d only stay a few years, but she fell in love with the mountains and a great guy who became her husband. After a couple decades in Utah, she and her family recently moved to Arizona. You can sign up for email updates here.
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CONTENTS
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Also by Paige Shelton
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
LOST BOOKS AND OLD BONES. Copyright © 2018 by Paige Shelton. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.minotaurbooks.com
Cover illustration by Robert Crawford
Plaid background © Alhovik/Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Shelton, Paige, author.
Title: Lost books and old bones / Paige Shelton.
Description: First edition. | New York: Minotaur Books, 2018. | Series: A Scottish Bookshop mystery; 3
Identifiers: LCCN 2017050904 | ISBN 9781250127792 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781250127808 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Booksellers and bookselling—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Edinburgh (Scotland)—Fiction. | Women booksellers—Fiction. | Women detectives—Fiction. | Bookstores—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.H45345 L67 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017050904
e-ISBN 9781250127808
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First Edition: April 2018
