Angie Turner, chef/owner of the County Seat, has set aside time for a team-building exercise for her staff. But it’s not a typical team-building exercise. They have the opportunity to spend the night in the cells of the Old Idaho Penitentiary.
No longer a prison, the Penitentiary is now a historical landmark and is rumored to be haunted. Most of Angie’s staff don’t believe in all that, though, even now, the week of Halloween. But when a bloodcurdling scream is heard shortly after they were all settled into their bunks, Angie and her friends were back awake and grabbing flashlights to search for the source of the scream.
They don’t find the screamer right away, but they do find one of the Penitentiary’s employees hired to play a guard for the night lying in a pool of blood. His death looks entirely to real, and Angie and her friends set off to find the other guards and a cell phone to call the authorities.
When it turns out that the guard really is dead and that the only cell phone in the locked prison is missing, Angie starts to worry. She would never have asked her team to do something like this if she thought there would be any real danger. And now they’re all stuck there until the locks open automatically at 6 the next morning or they find the cell phone and can call for help. But will finding the phone mean finding the killer?
Angie and her team learn a lot about the Penitentiary and those who were locked in there with them, but is it enough to find the killer? Or is the Penitentiary really haunted by the ghost of the inmate who had gotten pregnant by a guard and them had her baby taken away from her 3 days after giving birth? Who is the killer, and how will they figure it out and keep everyone safe?
Penned In is a novella from Lynn Cahoon as part of her Farm-to-Fork mystery series. Angie and her restaurant crew solve mysteries while cooking up delicious comfort food in this series, and this short Halloween mystery is no exception. Lots of fun in this quick cozy, some tricks, but it’s definitely a treat in the end!
A copy of Penned In was provided by Kensington Publishing Corp. through a Goodreads giveaway, with many thanks.
