The Lavender Butterfly Murders is part of Sharon Duncan's Scotia MacKinnon mystery series. MacKinnon is a PI who lives on her boat in the waters off the great northwest.

In the novel, she attends a yoga retreat at a former monastery on an isolated island. The middle-aged owner and her young, Italian (hot) husband's restoration project has been hampered by dirty tricks. The pranks escalate when one of the guests falls down stone stairs, and he has to be helicoptered off the island. The owner's problems grow exponentially worse when two other guests are murdered during the anything-but relaxing retreat.

Scotia MacKinnon's sleuthing uncovers angry locals, a mysterious contract for cell phone tower rights, Venezuelan thugs, and enough romance issues to rival a Shakespearian comedy.

Duncan describes an idyllic setting (that I really want to visit). The plot gets bogged down in parts, but she does a nice job of tying all the loose threads by the end.