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A False and Fatal Claim

Book 13 of the Lane Winslow Mystery Series

by Iona Whishaw

Lane Winslow is known in her idyllic British Columbia laketown of King's Cove for a bad habit of finding dead bodies. This time, all she's found is a suspiciously well-made hat abandoned in the brush, but she's certain there's a mystery afoot.

While Lane is overtaken by the urge to snoop around for clues, her husband, Inspector Darling, and his team at the Nelson Police Station find their straightforward case of a stolen boat suddenly complicated when a fourteen-year-old boy is reported missing from the local school. When the search for the boy, the hat's mysterious owner, and the boat lead them to the sudden disappearances of the local café cook, a visiting wealthy investor, and seventy thousand dollars in cash, the case quickly turns into a snarled tangle of missing people and scant, circumstantial evidence.

Desperate to keep a vulnerable and possibly violent young boy safe, Lane recruits the neighbours as Darling, Ames, Terrell, and April scour the local towns and wildernesses for answers--all while Ames struggles to focus through wedding jitters, and April and Terrell chafe under the questionable advice of meddlesome old "friends." At first, the daily dramas of King's Cove unfold uninterrupted around the simmering questions at the heart of this far-reaching mystery, but as the case reveals its roots in both the glitzy high society and criminal underground of 1920s Toronto, it soon becomes clear all hands will be needed on deck to get everyone to the coming wedding alive in one piece.

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Publisher: Touchstone Editions

Date: 2026

ISBN: 9781771514668

Location: King's Cove, British Columbia (Fictional)

Sub-genres: Historical , Cozy , Women Sleuths

About The Author

Iona Whishaw was born in 1948 to English parents in British Columbia and brought up in Mexico and the US. She worked as a youth worker, taught high school and served for 16 years as a high school administrator in Vancouver, Canada. She earned a Masters of Arts degree in creative writing from UBC and was the recipient of the YWCA Women of Distinction in Education award and a Canada's Top Principals award.

More About Iona Whishaw