The Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries: Book 4
Publication Date: August 1, 2026
One snowbound Christmas. One body in the ice house. Forty-eight puzzles to the truth.
The grandest gala in forty years fills the Hartwell manor with light and garland — until a blizzard seals the covered bridge and traps the whole party inside for the night. By first light, old Amos Greer is found frozen in the ice house. Everyone calls it a terrible accident: a difficult old man, a wild storm, one careless step into the cold. Retired schoolteacher Eleanor “Nell” Ashworth is the only one still asking who walked him out there.
But this time, the detective is you.
Each chapter hands you a scene and a word search. Solve the puzzle, and the leftover letters reveal a hidden clue — a suspect cleared, a motive exposed, a secret the snow was never meant to give up. Track them across forty-eight puzzles and you’ll be ready to name the killer, the motive, the means, and the place before Nell does.
Six suspects. One snowbound house, one secret worth a life. A verdict only you can reach.
A complete solve-along mystery — no apps required. Just you, a pencil, and forty-eight word searches that build to a single solution. A cozy Christmas whodunit, fully standalone, and perfect for cozy-mystery lovers and puzzlers alike — and a natural stocking-stuffer or gift for the reader who has everything.
Sharpen your pencil. Larkspur Hollow is waiting.
Christmas comes to Larkspur Hollow, bringing with it a gala, a blizzard, and a dead body.
Author Jody Chaffin serves up the fourth installment of the interactive mystery series with The Brittle Blossom.
Familiar characters combine with new ones to investigate whether Amos Greer’s death was an accident or something much more sinister. Through short chapter readings followed by word searches, readers use clues to find answers.
Just like the board game Clue, there is a real conservatory in this installment among the possible murder locations.
The case tracker serves as an organizational tool that narrows down six sets of clues regarding the culprit’s identity, motive, method, and location.
The Brittle Blossom provides an entertaining mystery for snowbound partygoers to solve.
 
Jody Chaffin writes cozy mysteries for readers who like to do more than turn the page, pairing small-town whodunits with word-search puzzles you solve right alongside the characters. When he isn’t hiding a secret in a grid, he’s building software or out playing sports. He lives in Missouri.
His debut series, The Larkspur Hollow Garden Club Mysteries, follows a tight-knit Vermont garden club through small-town secrets with every solution hidden in the puzzle pages for readers to find.
