Meet Heidi Macdonald: twenty-seven years old, living in her parents' basement, unable to drive, and somehow just hired as a research and communications officer for the Official Opposition in a Nova Scotia legislature that has no idea what it has let in. Memo to Murder is the first book in the Unintentional Sleuth Mysteries, a comic Canadian cozy mystery series set in the world of provincial politics, where the memos are dull, the politicians are duller, and an accidental amateur sleuth is about to find that Question Period is the least of anyone's problems. Here is Chapter One to get you started.

CHAPTER 1

“Tell us about your research experience.”

The man with the blue and white provincial flag pinned on his lapel leaned back in his chair. He had a scholar’s long, pale fingers, and a bureaucrat’s comfortable paunch. As Chief of Staff, Trevor Mackay had better things to do than interview junior staffers. His job was to take care of elected members in the House of Assembly, not to hire temporary staff. Already he knew this young woman in the wrinkled dress wouldn’t last long. None of them did. Some quit. Others disappeared. He never asked why, or where they went.

In her chair near the door, Heidi shifted and tried to think. After her exit interview at the call centre, when the manager reminded her, the job was to sell product, not run a helpline, she’d applied for every position advertised. The next interview, after this one, was for a booking clerk at a pest control company with technicians who drove tiny cars with giant mouse ears on the roofs. She hoped they employed cats.

“Research?” Heidi repeated. This man was clearly the boss. She should say something intelligent. “I was published,” she offered. It was true. “In Threads magazine.” They had put out a call for readers’ opinions on sewing machine attachments. She’d responded. Her submission, all six hundred words of it, was in issue 45, volume 7. The editor sent her a free copy. She gave it to her mother for Christmas.

“Treads? As in tires? Like on roads?” Ralphie Porter, representative from the most rural riding in the province, woke up. He reached for his takeout coffee and sloshed it over his copy of Heidi’s resume. “We need someone on that file.” He slurped from a paper cup, adding wet stains to his tie.

“True enough,” the Chief of Staff admitted. He eyed the representative from up the shore. Ralphie was a man Trevor would cross the street to avoid, if he could get away with it. But since politicians like this one paid his salary, Trevor arranged his features in what he hoped was a thoughtful expression.

Ralphie patted his jacket looking for a pen, gave up, pulled a toothpick and a tiny tin of breath mints from an inner pocket of his sagging Harris tweed jacket.

“If they call the election for July, we should be ready,” Trevor admitted. Voters complained about potholes. Insurance companies filed claims. A tourist bus had refused to cross a scenic bridge. The driver said it looked unsafe. Roads were an issue, and it was the job of the Official Opposition to embarrass the party in power. Question Period, when the Legislature was in session, was the best place to do that. But whenever Ralphie, the Opposition transportation critic, staggered to his feet in the House to ask a question, he fumbled and the government benches snickered. Ralphie blamed the staff for writing him lousy questions. Trevor was responsible for staff.

Furtively, the Chief of Staff pretended to look at the folder in front of him but used this as an excuse to check his watch. It was time to be decisive and get out of this room. “Someone who knows about vehicles wouldn’t hurt,” he admitted. At least this girl looked harmless, unquestioning, which was better than the rest of the candidates. Plus, she was published, which was something. Trevor Mackay was a snob. He turned to the woman in outsized, black-rimmed glasses who had led Heidi into the room.

“Cindy, can you do the paperwork?” he asked.

Cindy Russell, Trevor’s Executive Assistant, and in her mind the gatekeeper of all civilization, glared at her immediate supervisor, telegraphing her extreme disagreement with this decision. Trevor ignored her, stood up, hugged the folder to his chest, and left.

“Excellent,” she called after him. There was no way this girl would last long. “Good call,” she tossed out to the empty hall.

Cindy sighed and reached a dry hand across the boardroom table and shook Heidi’s hand. Her eyes lingered on the new hire’s unpainted nails and the pet hair in her dress. “Welcome aboard. Ms. Macdonald. You are now a research and communications officer with the province’s Official Opposition.”

* * *

“How is this going to work again?” Lauren asked. “I mean, have you ever voted?”

“Of course I have,” Heidi said. She hoped her sister wouldn’t ask her who for, or when. “Who doesn’t vote?”

“Did they look at your resume?” Lauren raised her spoon and stabbed it into the froth of her grande lavender oat latte. Lauren’s own resume included an early acceptance into medical school. She had tried to fix Heidi’s up, changing her sister’s role as a cleaner at their grandfather’s drugstore to “a leadership role as a key member of the property management team.” It was an improvement. But still.

“Not sure they understood it,” Heidi confessed. “But I aced the interview.”

Lauren refolded her used napkin along its crease lines and laid her spoon on top of it to signal she was done. She flicked her flat-ironed auburn hair over her straight shoulders and realigned. “How long is the probationary period?”

Heidi had an answer for this. Cindy had gone over this at least three times when Heidi signed the papers.

“Two months.”

Lauren’s eyes glided around the coffee shop as she considered strategies. Her sister was completely unqualified for the position, but it was a job. With pension and benefits.

“William,” she said, pronouncing the name that solved all problems. “He works for a minister. Economic and Rural Development. He can explain how government works.”

Heidi gagged on her peppermint tea. She would rather stick darning needles in her eyes than be lectured to by her sister’s boyfriend. William Armstrong, never Bill, Billy, or Will, had cornered her last Easter dinner to explain the finer points of squash and sailing, his biceps tight in his polyester golf shirt. Polyester. He had stood between Heidi and the desserts on the counter, lecturing and making her miss the round two call for blueberry pie. She had not forgiven him for that.

“No thanks,” Heidi said. It felt odd to be sitting here, inactive, listening to her sister talk. Usually, when she was in a coffee shop, she knitted. A person could get a whole cardigan done if they made the most of every small corner of time.

Lauren stared at her sister and re-positioned. “What exactly do they want you to do?”

“Research. Write questions for the members to ask the government in the House. You know, put them on the spot, find dirt. Expose corruption.” Heidi was aware of making this up as she went along. She had often been on the spot herself. She figured she could do this job by instinct. “I can Google anything I need to know. How hard can it be?” she asked.

Lauren didn’t answer and instead picked up the bill. She slapped down her American Express card and assessed her sister. Heidi wore a linen dress she’d made from a pattern in a Japanese pattern book. It was creased and baggy. Heidi must have got the instructions wrong. She didn’t read Japanese. She also didn’t drive, was twenty-seven, and lived in their parents’ basement.

Lauren would take her sister shopping before dropping her back at the house. They were all worried about Heidi. William was too.

She had to do something.

Memo to Murder is available as an ebook, exclusively on Amazon and free to read in Kindle Unlimited, and in paperback wherever books are sold. More here.