Faith Fairchild Series

Satisfying her hunger for epicurean adventure in the French provinces, small-town caterer and minister’s wife Faith Fairchild decides to throw the perfect dinner party. But during cleanup, after the last guest has departed her gastronomical triumph, she encounters something neither expected nor welcome: a dead body lying in her vestibule. Unfortunately it doesn’t help la belle americaine’s credibility when the corpse vanishes before the local gendarmes arrive. But Faith realizes that, though the police refuse to take her seriously, a killer just might.

Hollywood has come to town—and Faith Fairchild has to feed it! Hired to cater meals for the movie crew that is filming a modern-day version of The Scarlet Letter in the tiny New England village of Aleford, Faith is eager to treat the talented tantrum-throwers to the best of her culinary delights. But an accusation that her famous Black Bean Soup is poison has left a bad taste in Faith’s mouth. Her exploration into the source of the nasty slander leads the amateur investigator behind the scenes to a shocking off-camera murder. And suddenly more than Faith’s reputation is at stake.

Pix Miller, Faith Fairchild's next-door neighbor, expects to find more than a hole in the ground when she goes to check on the progress of the summer cottage the Fairchilds are having built on Maine's Sanpere Island. She expects a concrete foundation. What she doesn't expect is a very dead body wrapped in a very valuable antique quilt! The deceased is a local handyman with a suspiciously lucrative sideline in antiques. Sharing her friend Faith's inquisitive nature, Pix resolves to restore Sanpere's shattered peace.

Faith Fairchild is momentarily shocked to find her husband, the Reverend Thomas Fairchild, embracing Lora Deane—and relieved to discover the distraught nursery school teacher is merely seeking solace and advice. Lora has been receiving threatening phone calls. And she’s not the only resident of tiny Aleford, Massachusetts, who is being terrorized. Ever since local environmentalists began protesting the proposed housing development that will destroy Beecher’s Bog, the more vocal opponents have become targets of a vicious campaign of intimidation.

This time out, small-town caterer and minister’s wife Faith Fairchild’s neighbor, Pix Miller, takes center stage, heading off to Norway to investigate the sudden disappearance of a family friend. Determined to discover the truth, Pix is drawn into a suspenseful world of intrigue, stolen antiques, secret histories, and deadly echoes from Norway’s past and the Nazi occupation. Surrounded by the country’s breathtaking beauty, the ever-resourceful New Englander perseveres—until at last she finds herself face-to-face with a remorseless killer… with no way out.

Stretched almost to the limit by the capricious demands of a Boston Brahmin bride-to-be, caterer and minister’s wife Faith Fairchild faces real tragedy when she discovers the body of an elderly friend. Sarah Winslow had apparently surprised burglars ransacking her Aleford, Massachusetts, house. No sooner has Sarah been laid to rest than the Fairchilds find themselves the next target—the parsonage is stripped of all their most precious possessions. Devastated and furious, Faith takes action, scouring pawnshops, antique marts, and auctions.

Minister’s wife Faith Fairchild is excited about catering her church’s restoration campaign kickoff at historic Ballou House. But when a beautiful young woman dies moments after finishing dessert, Faith is suddenly in serious trouble. Not only is her business in jeopardy—but Aleford’s wagging tongues are suggesting that Faith herself laced the goodie with cyanide, having discovered her husband Tom’s perhaps overly pastoral interest in the victim.

Caterer and small-town minister’s wife Faith Fairchild might never have accepted the job teaching a course on Cooking for Idiots at Mansfield Academy had it not been for Daryl Martin. An African-American student at the prestigious prep school, Daryl has lately become the target of a series of vicious and anonymous racial attacks—and Faith is determined to put an end to the injustice. But Mansfield, she finds, is a seething cauldron of secrets, academic in-fighting, and unspoken rules that complicate her task.

To escape the misery of a sweltering August in Aleford, Massachusetts, caterer and minister's wife Faith Fairchild and her family head for their cottage on Maine's peaceful Sanpere Island in Penobscot Bay. But things have changed since their last visit. An aggressive developer is moving forward on plans that will destroy the unique ambience of the island, infuriating residents. Tensions are running dangerously high, and soon murder rears its hideous head.

Caterer Faith Fairchild and family are living in one of historic Cambridge, Massachusetts' venerable Brattle Street houses while the Reverend Tom teaches a course at the Harvard Divinity School and does some soul searching—is his Aleford parish his true calling? One night in downtown Boston, Faith is startled by a face from her past. It's Richard Morgan, a former boyfriend from her life as a single woman in Manhattan. Then something occurs that turns a pleasant sabbatical into a nightmare—Faith discovers a diary that reveals an unspeakable horror.

Caterer Faith Fairchild has a bad feeling about her father-in-law's decision to celebrate his seventieth birthday with a family reunion ski week at the Pine Slopes resort in Vermont—the Fairchilds' favorite getaway since Faith's husband, the Reverend Thomas Fairchild, was a toddler. At first, her unease seems unfounded—until Faith comes across a corpse on one of the cross-country trails, the apparent victim of a heart attack. Then one catastrophe follows another.

Faith Fairchild is asked to cater a very small, very private college reunion on an isolated New England island—an event that could be her dream job. But when she discovers the true reason for the get-together, not even the spectacular ocean views can keep it from turning into a nightmare. Thirty years ago, bestselling suspense writer Barbara Bailey Bishop lost her twin sister in a tower fall deemed a suicide. But Barbara is convinced that Hélène did not die by her own hand, and she’s trapped Hélène's former classmates at her home with no phone lines, no cell reception, and no means of escape.

Faith’s catering business has been slow with the downturn of the economy, so when her friend Patsy Avery proposes that she take over the café at Aleford’s Ganley Art Museum, it seems like a not-to-be-missed opportunity. And Patsy has an ulterior motive—she discovers that the Romare Bearden piece she lent the museum has been switched with a fake and wants Faith to snoop around to find the culprit.

It's Christmastime, and the Fairchild family is spending the holidays on idyllic Sanpere Island in Maine while the Reverend Thomas Fairchild recuperates from surgery. His caterer wife, Faith, is rejoicing in the rare, holiday family-time together—watching ice boaters, snowshoeing, and doing plenty of reading in front of the fire. But Faith's high spirits are dampened when she discovers the body of a young woman in an antique sleigh in front of the Sanpere Historical Society. The victim, Norah, was a teenage drug addict who apparently died by her own hand.

Faith has a lot on her plate as she attempts to solve a Depression Era murder while trying to clear her husband’s name after he is accused of a heartless theft. Poignant, suspenseful, puzzling, and all-around marvelous, The Body in the Gazebo is cozy culinary mystery at its very best—complete with a resolution that would make Dame Agatha Christie proud.