A country hotel. A beloved owner found dead. One impossible clue. Rare book cataloguer Iris Whitmore arrives at the Stonemount Hotel expecting three peaceful days preparing its historic library for auction before the hotel closes forever. Instead, she becomes stranded by floodwaters after the hotel's owner, Rosalind Merrow, dies during her nightly reading hour. Everyone believes it was a natural death. Until Iris notices one impossible detail. Rosalind always drank her evening cocoa from the same blue willow-pattern cup. Yet beside her chair sits an ordinary white cup. With the police delayed by flooded roads, Iris quietly follows a trail of forgotten guest books, hidden family secrets, and a decades-old injustice that someone has spent years trying to bury. Perfect for readers who love British cozy mysteries, amateur sleuths, country house mysteries, and classic whodunits filled with memorable characters, fair-play clues, and satisfying endings.