When it comes to jumping into the ocean, two things always hold me back: my fear of sharks and how I look in a wet bathing suit. Pete must have plied me with a lot of drinks last night for me to stand shivering, waiting to plunge into the Gulf of Mexico at high noon on Valentine’s Day.
Here is another fun group of food and wine mysteries-Batter Off Dead: A Southern Cake Baker Mystery by Maymee Bell, One Taste Too Many: Sarah Blair Mystery by Debra H. Goldstein, Steamed Open: A Maine Clambake Mystery by Barbara Ross, Wine and Punishment: A Literary Pub Mystery by Sarah Fox, Live and Let Pie: A Bakeshop Mystery by Ellie Alexander, Kappy King and the Pie Kaper: An Amish Mystery by Amy Lillard.
“As soon as you finish the marryin’ part, we’re gonna have cake.”
“Only cake?” Judge Ingram stared at Tommy and Melinda, the younger siblings of the couple whose Thanksgiving themed wedding he’d soon be officiating. He figured they were about eight or nine years old. “How about pumpkin pie, too?”
“This is where I buried my wives,” Biff said. He stared beyond the two marked graves down the hill at the orchard and lush pasture that divided the land between a few worn chicken houses and the newly fenced horse ring near the main house.
The last person attorney Carrie Martin would have expected to see in her office on a Sunday morning was her mother. It had been twenty-six years since Charlotte Martin walked out on her family, and Carrie has had no contact with her mother since that heart-breaking day. Charlotte claims that she is fulfilling the promise she made to her husband; finally deliver a letter to Carrie explaining why Charlotte had to leave so long ago.
Harvey Johnson glanced around his cell. Affixed to the cement block walls were a bunk bed, mini-toilet, sink and two small shelves. At least, he was the cell’s only occupant. He stretched himself across the top bunk to stake out possession of it. His feet hung off the end of the cot-sized mattress, but he figured that wouldn’t be a problem for long.
It was nearing Thanksgiving 1969. America had put a man on the moon in July, Kennedy had been dead six years, Nixon was president, and for most of us, it was the Age of Aquarius. For me, after graduating Alabama and spending months banging on doors in New York, I’d come back home and was covering the political beat for my dad’s paper, the Wahoo Times.
In this fourth collection of short mystery stories celebrating Thanksgiving, you truly can judge a book by its cover. The cartoonishly adorable illustration perfectly captures the spirit of these ten tales of families who unite, sometimes unwillingly, for a day of food, dysfunctional interactions, and an occasional murder or two. Interspersed between the stories are recipes that will have readers drooling in anticipation of a meal that takes a week to prepare and ten minutes to consume.
Judge Emma Rose Stewart frowned. She would have to teach her new law clerk not to be quite so over eager, but in the meantime she had a duo dilemma to deal with. She wasn’t sure which was worse – the earnest young lawyer her clerk had left stranded in her office doorway or trying to hide the ice cream cone she had been eating behind her.
