by Lucy Burdette
Lucy Burdette
All that to say, I’ve never written a historical novel and maybe never will. On the other hand, I do admire fiction that intertwines the present with the past. When I was searching for a plot for the twelfth Key West food critic mystery, A Dish To Die For, a good friend from my writers group saw a cookbook from the Key West Woman’s Club on a history list that he belongs to and thought I might be interested. I found a copy of the old cookbook on eBay and ordered it instantly. As I read through it, I wondered if something (fictional) happened back in the 1940s during the development of the cookbook could lead to a murder in the present time? I imagined the excitement of the women publishing this book, and pictured a grand party in the Woman’s Club to celebrate. Something goes wrong, but maybe only the two people involved know about it. And maybe this painful secret finally leaks into the current time. 
In my story, I determined that my protagonist, Hayley Snow, would discover a vintage copy of the first Key West Woman’s Club cookbook at the library. She becomes intrigued with the possibility that this bit of history might help her unravel the reason that a man died on the beach in the present day. It surely does! While writing this book, I realized that I do find history interesting—not the dates of events and names of battles that I studied in school, but the psychology of the people living in earlier days and how their lives were shaped by the times. Maybe my father was right all along, history can be fascinating. I hope you enjoy this fictional version of Key West history, too!
About A Dish To Die For:
Key West food critic Hayley Snow’s relaxing picnic outside of town is interrupted when her husband’s dog disappears on the beach. She follows his barking, to find him furiously digging at a shallow grave containing a man’s body. A birdwatcher identifies the dead man as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing local builder, famous for over-development on the fragile Keys, womanizing, and refusing to follow city rules. Then Hayley’s mother is hired to cater GG’s memorial service reception at the Woman’s Club, using recipes from the club’s vintage Key West cookbook. The real clues materialize when Hayley begins to study the old cookbook, as whispers of old secrets come to life, dragging the past into the present—with murderous results.“Key West food critic Hayley Snow proves once again that she understands crime as well as cuisine. A suitably steamy background for a complex tale of murder and deceit.” —Kirkus
“What’s so delightful about the Key Lime Food Critic mysteries? The setting. The characters. The food. And, of course, the writing.” —Cathy Salustri, The Gabber
“Culinary cozy fans are in for a treat.” —Publishers Weekly
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Thanks so much for sharing this post!