Prunella Pearce

Librarian Prunella Pearce has left heartbreak behind to start a new life in the village of Winterbottom, where there's little social life to be had aside from the meetings of The Winterbottom Women's Institute at the parish hall. But a bit of excitement ensues when the group is about to elect a new president—and the nominees for the position begin dropping like flies. One is found face down in a lemon drizzle cake stabbed with a crochet hook. Another dies spectacularly in the revolving doors of a Harrogate hotel.

Prunella Pearce, Bree, and the other ladies of the Winterbottom Women’s Institute are planning to spend Halloween at the Montgomery Hall Hotel murder-mystery weekend, just as the Hall’s past comes back to haunt it. The hotel is now in the incapable hands of Tarragon Montgomery, with its faltering finances overseen by elderly matriarch Cecily. Meanwhile, the local actress hired to play Psychic Selma for the weekend has been replaced by an impostor. But who is she and what is her agenda?

Christmas Eve, 1989. A couple is found slumped in front of their twinkling Christmas tree in an apparent murder-suicide. Today. Librarian Pru Pearce is preparing for her wedding to police detective Andy Barnes. But after one of her Women's Institute friends suffers a suspicious accident at Rookery Grange, a home for the elderly and infirm, Pru and the other ladies are on alert. And when one of the residents is asphyxiated with a pillow, no one can rest easy. With her wedding taking a disastrous turn and a killer on the loose, the part-time detective makes another vow: to solve the mystery.