Everyone saw a lonely widower. Margaret saw a man who had started smiling again.
When Frank Hollis is found dead in his armchair at Beacon Point, the police find an empty packet of sleeping tablets and see nothing suspicious.
Retired social worker Margaret Doyle isn't convinced. Frank had been planning a garden, taking secret phone calls, and talking about a woman who had brought light back into his life. To Margaret, his death feels wrong from the start.
As Margaret and her friends from the village begin asking quiet questions, they uncover more than an online romance scam. Behind the messages and the missing money lies something colder: a scheme built to turn loneliness into profit.
Warm, observant and quietly moving, Murder by Proxy is Book Two of the Kōwhai Bay Mysteries: a short cozy mystery about trust, shame, and the courage of people who refuse to let one of their own be forgotten.
Perfect for fans of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club.