"Fowl Play" by Patricia Tichenor Westfall

Even after fifteen years in southern rural Ohio, Chicagoan Molly West still feels a bit like an outsider despite her involvement in the community helping to run Meals-on-Wheels type business. When a local woman is murdered and several roosters go missing, the investigation flutters into her lap due to her scratching at clues and pecking holes in the stories locals tell. Soon she's dragged deep into the investigation along with the seventy-year-old matriarch of the area. The writing is fine, the murder case is thin, some of the humor okay, and the dignity of the people kept up, but Molly's sociology professor husband, Ken, crows too often and too long about the Appalachian culture for my tastes. Still, it will keep you occupied on cold, cloudy day. For cozy lovers, it's a four. I like more meat on my chicken and old roosters don't taste too good, so it's a three.