A Fowl Play — Shari Malin

When a show chicken's death ruffles some feathers, a long-simmering family feud boils over.Dr. Aris Thorne and his assistant, Mia Rodriguez, find themselves in the surprisingly cutthroat world of the county fair's poultry competition. When a prize-winning show chicken is found dead in her rival's coop, all signs point to foul play. The police are ready to close the case, but Aris's discovery of a tiny piece of a broken porcelain ornament in the chicken's crop tells him this isn't just about competition—it's about a decades-old family feud.Their investigation pulls them into the middle of a bitter rivalry between the Miller and Peterson families. Suspects abound: the rival matriarch with a history of underhanded tactics, her estranged son with a forbidden romance, and the Miller family's groundskeeper with a secret past.With Aris's deep knowledge of avian behavior and Mia's sharp intuition, they must piece together the clues left behind by the chicken and uncover a long-lost family heirloom that holds the key to the murder. Can they solve the case before the two families' hatred leads to more tragedy?