Aunt Dimity and the Buried Treasure (An Aunt Dimity Mystery #21)

Nancy Atherton's twenty-first cozy mystery in the beloved, Nationally Bestselling Aunt Dimity series.

While exploring the attic in her cottage near the small English village of Finch, Lori Shepherd makes an extraordinary discovery: a gold and silver bracelet inlaid with gleaming garnets, which she quickly learns belonged to Aunt Dimity. When Lori brings news of the garnet bracelet to Aunt Dimity, it awakens poignant memories of a doomed romance in Aunt Dimity's past. Regretfully, Aunt Dimity asks Lori to do what she could not bring herself to do—return the bracelet to her unsuccessful suitor or to his rightful heir.
 
In the meantime, a new family has moved to Finch. The villagers are thrilled because their new neighbors are avid metal detectorists. Metal detectors soon become all the rage in Finch and the villagers unearth a lot of rubbish (some of it quite embarrassing) before one of them stumbles upon a real treasure—an ancient hoard of priceless gold and silver artifacts.
 
The artifacts look strangely familiar to Lori. She begins to suspect that the villager isn't the only person who's stumbled upon the hoard. Did Aunt Dimity's suitor get there first? If he took the garnet bracelet from the hoard, what else might he have taken? Was Aunt Dimity's long-lost love a common thief? If so, who is his rightful heir? As Lori searches for answers, she discovers an unexpected link between the buried treasure in the village and the treasure buried in Aunt Dimity's heart.