Cold Mutton

Everyone knows what Lizzie Borden did. Nobody ever asked what she was trying to do.

Fall River, August 1892. In the worst heat in ten years, Lizzie Borden is poisoning her family, and it is not going well. The rat powder is slow. The druggist will not sell her anything quicker. The maid has begun to watch the soup, and the barn cat will no longer touch a dish she has been near.

Then, on a Thursday morning, a hatchet settles what the mutton could not.

Twelve years later Lizzie is acquitted, rich, and the most avoided woman in Massachusetts. She has a fine house on the Hill, four bathrooms, and a devout sister who has never once doubted her. Then Uncle John arrives from Iowa with no luggage, a good appetite, and a long memory. He knows what was in the broth. He would like to be made comfortable.

Lizzie has had twelve years to think it over. She has flypaper, a loose stair rod, and a house about to fill with actors. She has never yet got a dose right.

Cold Mutton is a darkly funny novel of suspense about family, money, and the difference between wanting to do a thing and being able to.