DEATH AT SAM'S MINE

Balsam Bay has debated reopening Samuel Melvin’s abandoned gold mine for years.

Someone has stopped waiting for the town to decide.

​

The town still calls it the Melvin mine. Lately, Tilly Lafleur has caught herself calling it Sam’s.

​

Prospectors Weekend brings Balsam Bay outdoors with bannock over open fires, claim maps, guided hikes, the Junior Prospectors’ Treasure Hunt, and a pie competition the Balsam Belles treat as a matter of civic honour.

​

Then months of research disappear from a crowded festival booth.

​

Most of the town dismisses the man who collected it as a crank. Tilly isn’t so sure. His missing papers traced a pattern of quiet activity around the mine: land inquiries, survey work, and questions nobody seems willing to answer.

​

Someone thought his work was worth stealing.

​

Days later, the loudest voice for reopening the mine is found dead inside a derelict bunkhouse.

​

With her watchful dog Des at her side and her daughter Callie keeping the town talking, Tilly begins piecing together what the stolen research had begun to expose.

​

But the closer she gets to the truth, the clearer it becomes:

​

While Balsam Bay has been arguing about the mine’s future, someone else has already been making plans for it.

​

Death at Sam’s Mine is the fifth book in the Tilly Lafleur Mysteries—a small-town cozy mystery series with real stakes, buried secrets, and page-turning twists.