Dive into a Cozy Mystery
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Welcome! . . . I write mysteries about people caught up in crimes who pursue justice, armed with quick thinking and courage. My Five-Ingredient Mysteries feature a café manager solving murders with her live-wire grandfather in a historic Chesapeake Bay town. Each book has five suspects, five clues, and Granddad's five-ingredient recipes.
Five-Ingredient Mysteries
By Cook or by Crook
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As Val adjusts to living with her curmudgeonly grandfather, he takes up cooking, and she takes up sleuthing to find the killer who framed her cousin for murder.
Haunted by the car accident that ended her career as a cookbook publicist, Val Deniston has left Manhattan for a quieter life near the Chesapeake Bay. Now living with her grandfather in the tourist town of Bayport, she enjoys running the Cool Down Café at the sports club. After a club member is murdered, Val cooks up a scheme to find the killer while Granddad creates havoc in the kitchen, the least of Val's problems with a murderer after her. |
ISBN: 978-1-61773-138-9
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Buy from Kensington Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or a local bookstore through Indie Bound. |
Scam Chowder
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When a con man preying on retirees dies after eating Granddad’s clam chowder, Val must prove her grandfather innocent of murder.
Val loves the historic town where she lives with her grandfather, the Codger Cook. Running the fitness club’s Cool Down Café—and salvaging the five-ingredient dishes Granddad messes up—keeps her busy. When a dinner guest, a scammer who preys on retirees, goes face down in the chowder, Granddad's in the soup. As the police gather the ingredients for a murder conviction against him, he and Val dredge up secrets that could save him or get them both killed. Read more about Scam Chowder. |
ISBN: 978-1-61773-138-9
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Order from Kensington Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, or a nearby bookstore on Indie Bound. |
Final Fondue
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When Granddad's houseguest is murdered while eating chocolate fondue, he and Val must stop a killer bent on re-creating Hitchcock’s creepy scenarios.
As Val helps her grandfather prepare for houseguests, visitors to Bayport’s Tricentennial Festival, he reminisces about the fondue parties of the 1970s and makes chocolate fondue to greet them. One of them eats her final fondue that night. In the dark the murderer might have mistaken her for another houseguest or even for Val. When a fondue fork and a kitchen knife disappear, Val and Granddad team up to keep the killer from making another stab at murder. Read more about Final Fondue. |
ISBN: 978-1-61773-142-6
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The Tell-Tale TarteWhen an actor who portrays Poe is murdered, Val and Granddad track the killer to a “House of Usher” on the Chesapeake Bay and to the cemetery where Poe is buried.
Val fears for her grandfather’s life when an actor is murdered while dressed like Granddad. She soon learns the actor isn’t the only one doing an impersonation. The search for his murderer takes Val and Granddad to the home of a Poe-inspired author, Rick Usher. When they are stranded at the "House of Usher" by an ice storm, they uncover clues to the murder, but will they live to tell the tale? Read more about The Tell-Tale Tarte. |
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0917-2
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S'more MurdersWhen Val caters a Titanic memorial dinner on a yacht in the Chesapeake Bay, long submerged grievances lead to murder.
A Titanic-obsessed yacht owner hires Val to re-create the final meal served on that doomed ship. On the anniversary of its sinking, the yachtsman welcomes his guests aboard and assigns them roles in a murder mystery game, "Death on the Titanic." Val soon reaches the chilling conclusion that the host is fishing for the culprit in a real crime. When someone goes overboard, Val has to reel in a killer before s’more murders go down. Read more about the last dinner on the Titanic and S'more Murders. |
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0919-6
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Crypt Suzette
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When a murder masquerades as an accident, Granddad's ghost-busting and Val's foray into a haunted house turn up clues to the killer.
As Val caters a Halloween party at Bayport’s bookshop, a group of would-be writers, the Fictionistas, compete in the costume contest. One of them, the secretive Suzette, rents a spare room from Granddad. When she’s found dead after a hit-and-run, the Fictionistas accuse each other of murder. Did one of them kill her or was her death rooted in the past she’d worked hard to escape? Val and Granddad must pull off a Halloween ruse to rip the mask off a murderer. Read more about Crypt Suzette. |
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2242-3
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Gingerdead Man
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When a Santa keels over after eating gingerbread at the holiday party Val caters, she and Granddad must keep a killer from baking more deadly treats.
During Bayport's Dickens of a Holiday festival, Val hosts a private tea party for the volunteers dressed as Dickens characters, Santa, and Mrs. Claus. Then an unexpected guest arrives, shrouded in black like the eeriest Dickens ghost, and hands out gingerbread men with white icing skeleton bones. Though the creepy gingerdead man looks like a Halloween leftover, the insatiable Santa can't resist it. When the man in red turns blue, Val and Granddad have a cookie-cutter killer to catch. Read the first chapter of Gingerdead Man. |
ISBN: 978-1496722447
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