Anne Riley

Off With Their Heads Anne Riley

Welcome to Wonderland, Alabama, where residents embrace their obvious connection to the Lewis Carroll classic with kitschy restaurants and tourist shops. Every year, on the last night of September, the town excitedly gathers at Wonderland Public Library for the Tumbledown Eve party. It's a jovial night that officially kicks off the five-day Tumbledown Festival, a celebration of Alice in Wonderland that brings in Alice fans from all over the Southeast. At this year's party, library director Emerson Bloom is pretty proud of her Caterpillar costume and her signature cocktail, a rum-spiked Mad Hatter's Brew. She is confident it will be a celebratory festival year, as always. But when one of her party guests is found axed to death in the Impossibilities Room, Emerson realizes that someone in their tight-knit community is a killer and no one is above suspicion. Unfortunately, that includes Emerson's beloved mentor and friend, Mrs. Larson, who bizarrely confesses to the crime and sends the whole town tumbling down a rabbit hole of suspicion and unease. On the surface, Mrs. Larsen's confession seems to hold water - until a white rabbit leads Emerson through the rose bushes to the Larsens' property, where she encounters a much more likely suspect. As threatening notes arrive at the library and another citizen is attacked, Emerson feels certain that Mrs. Larsen can't be guilty. But proving her friend's innocence will require peering through the looking glass into the past, where secrets swirl thick and the impossible becomes reality.