Author: Devon Delaney
Genre: Mystery
Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781960511423
Beyond The Page Publishing
204 Pages
$14.00; $4.99 Amazon
November 14, 2023
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With international cuisine on the menu for her next cook-off, Sherry Oliveri experiments with one dish after another looking for that perfect killer recipe. But her competitive drive gets put on the bakc burner when her friend Patti calls in a panic: her new boyfriend has vanished, and signs of foul play suggest he may have been killed. Then the police begin investigating the disappearance as a murder, and they've got Patti pegged as the main suspect.
Still, the man’s body has yet to be found, and that in itself has Sherry wondering. Slipping out of her apron and into her sleuthing cap, she learns that the man had serious money problems and was even dating Patti while he was still married. Did he fake his own death ot get out of a jam? Determined to find the truth and get her friend off the hook, Sherry follows the clues until they come together like the perfect meal -- until one final surprise brings her face-to-face with a killer...
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Sherry Oliveri makes her living working at her father's store, The Ruggery, and entering cook-offs in her spare time. While giving a week-long lecture about gardening at a school, she learns that one of the students' father is the owner of a new newspaper in town. A newspaper that is riling up the townspeople with talk of modernizing her small town. Most people are happy with the way it is, and they don't like the interference of someone who has recently moved here from Iceland.
To make matters worse, Sherry discovers that her friend Patti Mellit is dating the man's brother -- at least until Sig disappears. Now she's suspected of murdering him, even though there's no body. She didn't even know he was married until recently, and Sherry doesn't think that's a motive. So, when Patti asks for her help, she can't say no. Not to mention she has to concentrate on the cook-off, sponsored by the rival newspaper; and her boyfriend Don is acting around her. Sherry has a lot of pots on the fire, and she'll be lucky if none of them get her burned...
This is the eighth book in the series, and I have loved them all. This time out Sherry is trying her hand at international cuisine, and also trying to solve a murder. Even her cop friend Ray Bease knows why she's doing it, and he knows cautioning her isn't going to change anything. At least her sister Marla is in town to help out, so that's a plus.
When Sherry starts looking for clues, she notices that there's one constant (which I won't mention here as you will find out when you read the book), and that sets her to thinking that the murderer might be someone involved in the cook-off. But which person? When she's confronted by a PI that Sig's wife hired, who's convinced Patti had something to do with the murder, she refuses to work with the woman. But it's not that easy, and the more they discover, the harder it becomes to determine the killer.
In the end, this was a twisted tale that hinged on that one constant, and it all comes together nicely after all. The reasons for the murder only make sense to the murderer (but that's the way it usually is, right?) and the ending gives us a nice satisfaction. I enjoyed this book and look forward to the next. Recommended.
I received an advance copy from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.
More on Devon Delaney's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/d/devon-delaney/
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