TWICE TOLD TAIL, by Ali Brandon

#6 in the Black Cat Bookshop cozy series.
Everything you love about cozies is here: a winning amateur sleuth with a fascinating job (inherited, a bookshop and brownstone, a very generous auntie),  a wide range of good friends one of whom becomes a corpse.
And the cat, Hamlet: big, black, brilliant, and very adept at pushing books containing clues at his mistress. I personally find extra-intelligent felines a bit much (in our own homes, the beasts are sometimes too intelligent for their owners' good!).
When bookstore owner Darla Pettistone and her boisterous friend Connie Capello find a dear friendof Darla's dead in his own shop, one of his antique pieces (a small pillow) in his lap, Darla finds herself involved in what turns out to be a murder. Connie, on edge from a last-minute wedding gown search, actually finds the body (second of the day), and her fiance is the investigating detective.
Connie is the take-over-your-life kind of friend, and Darla spends a lot of time keeping the fast-approaching nuptials on an even keel, even though she and the soon-to-be-groom have a history. Pushing aside what might be feelings for the detective, she and Hamlet see someone lurking in the shadows near the murder site. Hamlet shows a keen interest in the lurker; is he also tied to the weird wedding dress shop employee? Is he the mysterious book purchaser who rejects a sought-after sale  for being the wrong book? Is it even a he?
A convoluted tale well told. It's a 4.