Death al Fresco
A Sally Solari Mystery
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
It’s up to Sally Solari to serve up a killer before their family restaurant’s reputation goes up in smoke.
It’s early autumn in Santa Cruz and restaurateur Sally Solari decides an open-air painting class is the perfect way for her to learn more about Paul Gauguin, the inspiration for the restaurant she has recently inherited. But the beauty of the Monterey Bay coastline is shattered when Sally’s dog Buster sniffs out a corpse tangled up in kelp.
The body is identified as Gino, a local fisherman and a regular at Solaris’ until he disappeared after dining there a few nights before. Witnesses claim he left reeling drunk, but his waitress swears the old man only had two beers with is meal. And then the fingers begin to point at Sally’s dad for negligently allowing an inebriated customer to walk home alone at night.
From a long menu of suspects, including a cast of colorful characters who frequent the historic Santa Cruz fisherman’s wharf, Sally must serve up the tall order of clearing her father’s name in Death al Fresco, Leslie Karst’s third delectable Sally Solari mystery.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Karst's routine third mystery featuring Santa Cruz, Calif., restaurateur Sally Solari (after 2017's A Measure of Murder) opens with Sally taking part in a painting class on the beach. When her dog starts digging furiously in a pile of kelp, Sally investigates and discovers the body of 80-year-old bachelor Gino Barbieri, who was last seen patronizing Solari's, the restaurant run by her father. Abrasions on Gino's head suggest homicide. Sally billed as the town's Jessica Fletcher in the local newspaper sets out to solve the case after she finds the dead man's cap on her father's boat. Meanwhile, she must deal with the chef at her own eatery, who's threatening to quit; the arrival of a delegation from Santa's Cruz's Italian sister city for a festive meal at Solari's; and protestors who object to the flyers used by her tone-deaf father to promote the event, because they're adorned with the image of Christopher Columbus. Sally may not impress as a detective, but cozy fans should have fun watching her navigate her various crises.
