Mom Meets Her Maker — James Yaffe

I HAD THE PERFECT GIFT FOR MOM THIS YEAR. A MURDER.
Not only was Dave's mother a great cook, but she had an amazing knack -- between the chopped liver and the strudel -- for solving his most difficult murder cases. Possibly because no detail, no matter how trivial, ever escaped that rattrap brain of hers.

When the Reverend Chuck Candy is found dead three days before Christmas, it's more than ill-timed murder. It's a complex case of religious fanaticism, illicit affairs and small-town bigotry. Dave -- an investigator for the public defender -- believes an innocent man is being framed. And he knows only one person in Mesa Grande, Colorado, can untangle the web of unlikely connections and sinister intentions: Mom.