Suspense Food Mystery

Food Preneurs, one of the hottest cooking shows on TV, has decided to feature Jewel Bay in an upcoming episode, and everyone in town is preparing for their close-ups, including the crew at the Glacier Mercantile, a.k.a. the Merc. Not only is Erin Murphy busy remodeling her courtyard into a relaxing dining area, she's organizing a steak-cooking competition between three of Jewel Bay's hottest chefs to be featured on the program.

Between developing her food blog, Hope at Home, and choosing low-cal recipes for a feature in Cooking Now! magazine, Hope has a full plate. Still, she's never too busy to compete in a Jefferson, Connecticut, tradition - the town's annual scavenger hunt. But as she races with her team to check off the next item, Hope discovers a grisly surprise - the body of shady real estate developer Lionel Whitcomb, shot in a parking lot. His wife Elaine, who's also in the hunt, gasps and nearly faints. But two other women on the scene cry out that their husband is dead.

This Halloween, Hayley can't imagine a worse trick than her ex-husband Danny returning to Bar Harbor. Her kids may be happy to see their dad, but Hayley's determined not to be taken in by his charms, and suspects he's in financial trouble - again. Still, the haunted holiday is about to get a whole lot scarier after Danny's moonshine - making uncle is found lying dead next to a tombstone in a cemetery - and Danny quickly becomes the prime suspect. To prove her ex is innocent, Hayley will have to dig deep into her own bag of tricks to unmask the real culprit.

Peace and quiet are hard to find in bustling Key West, so Hayley Snow, a food critic for Key Zest magazine, is taking the afternoon off for a tranquil lunch with a friend outside of town. As they are enjoying the wild beach and the lunch, she realizes that her husband Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. She follows his barking and finds him furiously digging at a shallow grave with a man’s body in it. Davis Jager, a local birdwatcher, identifies him as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing Key West local and developer.

In her Food Lovers' Village Mysteries, Agatha Award-winning author Leslie Budewitz introduces us to Jewel Bay, a tight-knit Montana community that thrives on tourism and farm-to-table fare. Featuring Erin Murphy, beloved proprietor of the Merc—a century-old general store converted into a local foods market-each book brings us closer to the folks who call Jewel Bay home, and the cunning culprits in their midst.

Newcomers to Tinker's Cove, Ty and Heather Moon have moved into a dilapidated house reputed to be a haven for ghosts. Now strange noises and flickering lights erupt from the house at all hours and neighborly relations are on edge. And when a local boy goes missing near the house, it's up to Lucy Stone to unravel the mystery of the eccentric couple and their increasingly frightful behavior.

THE GRAND FINALE - the Last book in the much loved Dolphin Bay Cozy Mystery Series 5 stars - ' Best of the best....reading...OMG wonderful' Dolphin Bay Mayor Bashed to Death The coastal California town of Dolphin Bay has fall fever. When the vicious mayor is found dead in the hay bale maze, there is no dearth of suspects. Anna and the Firecrackers aren't surprised that very few people in town are grieving the poor dead woman. Clues and red herrings abound but it's not easy to figure out who killed her. Series fans are in for a roller coaster ride with twists and turns that will keep them ...

Woman Brutally Murdered on Cruise The luxury cruise ship Grand Voyager is headed full speed to Dubai after stops in Sri Lanka and India. Meg has just attended a big fat royal wedding and is looking forward to some relaxing sea days. Her hot dinner date is interrupted by the announcement of a passenger's death. Rushing to the spot, Meg is sad to learn it is her new friend who was celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary. Further investigation reveals the old woman was stabbed in her suite. Meg can't believe the bashful mother of two that security apprehended is capable of such a heinous ...

Liddy Crawford, best friend of food and cocktails columnist Hayley Powell, is getting married. The wedding is the talk of the town in Bar Harbor, Maine, including snide gossip about the age gap between the bride and her groom, local lawyer Sonny Lipton. But the cruelty of the comments is nothing compared to the nasty wedding-cake baker, Liddy's quarrelsome cousin Lisa. So when the belligerent baker is found facedown in a three-tier cake, the victim of a poisoned slice, there are more suspects in town than names on the guest list.

The Pie Thief of Pine Gulch: A Cozy Culinary Mystery 🦊 A stolen recipe. A baking rivalry. And a pie thief on the loose. The Pine Gulch Pie Festival is the town’s most anticipated event, but this year, the competition just got personal. Local baker Clara Bennett’s heirloom recipe book has vanished—right before the contest. Without it, her chances at winning the coveted Blue Ribbon are crumbling faster than a failed pie crust. As Clara scrambles to recreate her family’s secret recipes, rumors of sabotage sweep through Pine Gulch. Could a rival baker be trying to take her out of the...

Hayley Powell, food and cocktails columnist for Bar Harbor's Island Times, is...well, kind of broke. So when she's selected for that extreme coupon-clipping reality game show coming to town...she's thrilled, especially when her competition is nasty nurse Candace Culpepper. But when Haley stumbles across a face-down-in-the-snow Candace - scissors gleaming between her shoulders - she knows the next thing she'll be selected for will probably be a police line-up.

Bar Harbor, Maine, is quieter in the off-season, but the population has just increased a bit with the arrival of Tim and Trudy Lancaster. Tim's taking over for a retiring minister, and Trudy runs a food truck called Wicked 'Wiches. When she stops in at the Island Times office to place an ad, Hayley happily devours the sample sub Trudy offers - and the two become fast friends. But when Trudy tragically dies in her truck while catering a Halloween party, suspicion falls on a cranky, competitive caterer who'd made veiled threats to Trudy.

Troubadour Turf Wars Escalate To Murder Summer in Pelican Cove brings a horde of tourists along with a couple of traveling musicians. The rivalry between the troubadours turns deadly when one of them is found strangled to death. When Jenny King puts on her sleuthing cap against the local sheriff's wishes, she is determined to prove that the police have the wrong man. She must dig deeper into the victim’s past to search for a motive and identify possible suspects to solve the mystery. Pelican Cove is electing a new mayor after fifty years and the overzealous candidates have opposite ...

Key Zest food critic Hayley Snow and her groom, Police Detective Nathan Bransford, chose Scotland for their long-delayed honeymoon, hoping to sightsee and enjoy some prize-winning scones. But their romantic duo swells to a crowd when they're joined by Nathan's family as well as octogenarian Miss Gloria. Nathan's sister Vera takes the women on a whirlwind tour of some of Scotland's iconic mystic places as research for a looming book project. But the trip takes a deadly tartan turn when a dinner party guest falls ill and claims she was poisoned.

Death on the Seine - a delightful cozy mystery set in Paris, a city where food, wine, and crime make life worth living… along with a few books and Mercury, the cat. For Ava Sext, a transplanted Londoner who sells books from an outdoor stand overlooking the Seine, her day goes from bad to worse when the tall, handsome stranger whose appearance her horoscope predicted disappears after he is almost killed before her eyes. And that's before she discovers that he supposedly died weeks earlier. With the help of her fellow bookseller, Henri DeAth, a former notary in a country where notaries are ...

Hayley Snow's life has always revolved around food, but when she applies to be a food critic for a Key West style magazine, she discovers that her new boss will be Kristen Faulkner—the woman Hayley caught in bed with her boyfriend! Hayley thinks things are as bad as they can get...until the police pull her in as a suspect in Kristen's murder. Kristen was killed by a poisoned key-lime pie. Now Hayley must find out who used meringue to murder before she takes all the blame...

Mahalia's Sweet Tea boasts the most flavorful soul food in all of Prince George's County, Maryland. But as events at the beauty industry's leading trade show turn ugly, owner Halia Watkins needs to bite into an unsavory new item on the menu - murder!

Dolphin Bay Philanthropist Strangled in Bed! 5 stars - 'Expect chilling danger, unexpected surprises, gripping thrills, romance, laughter, heart touching moments and murder. ' Christmas is around the corner and cafe owner Anna Butler has big plans for the holiday season. When a beloved local philanthropist is murdered in his sleep, Anna is shocked and sad but decides she is too busy to go sleuthing this time. Then an odious stranger turns up at the café and makes her an offer she cannot ignore. Anna plunges into the investigation against the wishes of her family. Interviews with the ...

Food critic Hayley Snow and her pal Miss Gloria are overjoyed to welcome Violet and Bettina Booth, aka the Scottish Scone Sisters, to Key West. The sisters will host The UK Bakes!—Key West Edition. But the same day they arrive, the bed-and-breakfast the sisters are staying in gets torched. The contest begins the next morning featuring three local bakers. One is the inn owner’s wife, Rayna, who is not only the most talented chef of the group but now a person of interest in the fire. The next night, a dogwalker discovers a body near the bed-and-breakfast.

Murder Suspected In Homecoming Queen's Fatal Accident Isabella Worthington, a teen millionaire heiress, is a popular figure in Pelican Cove. Her sudden death shocks the town and plunges Jenny and the Magnolias in grief. The open-and-shut case turns into a murder investigation when a witness comes forward and asks Jenny to investigate foul play. Determined to seek justice for her newest friend, Jenny sets on a mission to find out why someone would want to kill the generous and much loved girl. As secrets tumble out of the shadows, Jenny realizes that the victim was surrounded by sinners. Who...