by Sunny Frazier

So, you weren’t able to take a vacation to Europe this summer? Too dangerous anyway. The following authors set their books overseas to give you a virtual vacation. And foodie mysteries for virtual calories!

Technically not overseas, but still in the beautiful setting of Cape Cod, Vicki Delany gives us the next in her Sherlock Holmes series. Gemma Doyle and Jayne Wilson manage the Sherlock Holmes Bookstore and Emporium on Baker Street. They’re excited about an important author coming to town and doing a signing. She’s the author of a very controversial Holmes mystery series. When one of the locals verbally attacks the woman for disgracing the Sherlock legacy, the author lashes back then falls dead on the table. To clear the local man’s name, Gemma and Jayne make a list of suspects. Could it be the author’s bullied personal assistant, her frustrated publicist, her publisher, a rare book dealer, or an obsessive fan? Body on Baker Street is the second in the series.

A new series has popped up on the scene. Set in1919 England, this is the first in the Verity Kent Mystery Series penned by Anna Lee Huber. Verity is grieving the death of her husband when she receives a cryptic letter suggesting her husband may have committed treason. But the letter writer knows too much, including the fact that Verity worked for the Secret Service. Attending a party for one of her husband’s fellow officers, she discovers dark secrets and a murder to conceal them. It’s This Side of Murder for the heroine.

From England it’s just a jaunt to Scotland to find Highland Peril waiting for photographer Sylvie Carmichael and her artist husband. Their bucolic life among the heather is interrupted when a buyer for a long-lost Scottish masterpiece is found dead in her husband’s Edinburgh gallery. In a search for answers, Sylvie enters into an unsolved mystery from Cromwellian times to WWI. This the second book in the Malice novels by Amy Reade.

Let’s go to the Brittany region of France, shall we? It’s a reunion for Hayden Mundy Moore and her chocolate-making mentor. He’s ready to merge his business with one of his competitors, united by the marriage between the two rival families. But, when the old man is murdered at night during a festival, Hayden has to wonder if it’s corporate backstabbing (literally). And is there any connection to that film crew at the chateau to shoot a music video? She has to find the murderer, but there’s always time for caramels and galettes. Dead and Ganache is the fourth in the mouth-watering Chocolate Whisperer Mystery Series by Colette London.

Back home again, Is Charity Penn Asking for Truffle when she gets a letter saying she won a trip to Camellia Beach in South Carolina? It comes with free cooking lesson at the seaside chocolate shop called The Chocolate Box. But, Charity never entered the contest. Her friend offers to look into the bogus prize, only to wind up drowned in a vat of chocolate (I mean, if you have to die that’s not a bad choice). Feeling guilty, Charity goes to the town to investigate and gets sucked into the eccentric vibe of the place. Plus, she enjoys learning the craft of chocolate making. That is until she also discovers a plot to destroy the town. This is the first in A Southern Chocolate Shop Mysteries by Dorothy St. James.

Julia Buckley is Pudding Up with Murder in her third Undercover Dish Mystery. Set in Illinois, Chef Lilah Drake keeps her recipes a secret. After prompting from clients, she comes up with a new casserole for the birthday party for a wealthy curmudgeon. When he’s found face down in the casserole, suspects abound. There are several ex-wives, many enemies, and the heir to the fortune. But, as the saying goes, “The proof is in the pudding.”

For some of you following the Henny Penny Farmette Mystery Series, you know Abigail Mackenzie left the police force to become a farmer and beekeeper in Las Flores, California. Her friend and truffle maker is renewing her wedding vows with her husband who owns a winery (we all do in California. Kidding!). After the ceremony, Abby hears a gunshot and finds the husband dead in his car and her friend wounded. Whodunit? Well, the husband was a ladies’ man and made some enemies at the winery. But what if her friend was the target? And then a second murder happens, and it’s a Hive of Homicides, third in the series by Meera Lester. Oh, and did I mention it comes with farming tips and recipes?

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Sunny Frazier worked with an undercover narcotics team in Fresno County for 17 years before turning her energies to writing the Christy Bristol Astrology Mysteries. Based in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the novels are inspired by real cases and 35 years of casting horoscopes.

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