A Dish to Die for
A Key West Food Critic Mystery
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- $29.99
Publisher Description
National bestselling author Lucy Burdette returns to Key West for another delectable dish of secrets, intrigue, and murder.
Peace and quiet are hard to find in bustling Key West, so Hayley Snow, food critic for Key Zest magazine, is taking the afternoon off for a tranquil lunch with a friend outside of town. As they are enjoying the wild beach and the lunch, she realizes that her husband Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. She follows his barking, to find him furiously digging at a shallow grave with a man’s body in it. Davis Jager, a local birdwatcher, identifies him as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing Key West local and developer. Garcia was famous for over-development on the fragile Keys, womanizing, and refusing to follow city rules—so it’s no wonder he had a few enemies.
When Davis is attacked in the parking lot of a local restaurant after talking to Hayley and her dear friend, the octogenarian Miss Gloria, Hayley is slowly but surely drawn into the case. Hayley’s mother, Janet, has been hired to cater GG’s memorial service reception at the local Woman’s Club, using recipes from their vintage Key West cookbook—and Hayley and Miss Gloria sign on to work with her, hoping to cook up some clues by observing the mourners.
But the real clues appear 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Burdette's solid 12th Key West Food Critic mystery (after 2021's A Scone of Contention) finds Hayley Snow, a food critic for Key Zest magazine, taking a beach trip to an island north of Key West, Fla., along with Nathan Bransford, her police detective husband, and their two dogs. There, one of the dogs uncovers a body in the sand that turns out to belong to restaurant and bar owner Gerald Garcia. During the Covid pandemic, Garcia refused to close his eating and drinking establishments, and he was rumored to be bankrolling the lobbyists promoting cruise ships. In short, the victim had many enemies with multiple motives to want him dead. Hayley and Nathan help the sheriff's department investigate. Meanwhile, Hayley discovers a cookbook published by the Key West Woman's Club in 1949 hidden in a drawer at the club. The glimpses of life in Key West decades earlier adds historical color to the somewhat perfunctory sleuthing. Recipes for such delectables as banana cream pie and pigs in a blanket round out the volume. Culinary cozy fans are in for a treat.
