A Catered Birthday Party

Visions of sugar plums are most decidedly not dancing in Libby's head--especially since she and her sister are set to appear on the Hortense Calabash Cooking Show. The premise is to give six professional caterers random ingredients and have them whip up a holiday meal. The icing on the fruitcake is that Hortense Calabash is a grinch of year-round proportions. And the other contestants are some of the most demanding--and difficult--chefs in the business.

Bernie and Libby are thrown into the mix as arguments and accusations simmer on the set. Holiday spirit has left the building--and leaves a body--when Hortense, all dressed up as Santa Claus for the opening sequence, is killed by an exploding oven.

With the holiday rush in full swing and a killer still on the loose, Bernie and Libby have no choice but to wrap up the mystery before their geese are well and fully cooked. . .

While almost everyone Amethyst ever met might have a motive for killing her, not everyone had access to the Peabody School. All Bernie and Libby know is if they don't solve this mystery soon, they might become the next stars in a real-life horror flick. . .

Putting their preparations on hold, Bernie and Libby attend the funeral, only to be recruited to help solve a mystery. In an old cemetery-turned-lover's-lane, the body of Ted Gorman has been found in someone else's grave. The same Ted Gorman who supposedly died in a fiery car crash weeks earlier.

Ted was the ownerwith his wifeof Just Chocolate. So now, as Bernie and Libby continue working with the grieving widow, they open up a mixed box of dark financial scandal, sticky family ties, bittersweet passion, and just desserts.

With everyone harboring their own cornucopia of secrets, discovering who wanted to carve up Monty won't be easy. Worse, the Field Mansion is draped under a snowstorm, trapping them with a killer determined to get more than his piece of the pie. Bernie and Libby will have to find out who the culprit is, fast, before the leftovers--and their chances of surviving--run out for good. . .

"Spritely. . . The action builds to more fireworks and a dramatic rescue." --Publishers Weekly

"This will please Crawford's old fans and bring in new ones." --RT Book Reviews

But the more information Bernie and Libby stir up, the more Duncan Nottingham looks like a killer. For Bernie and Libby, the situation is deadly and in danger of boiling over. And they can't count on good old Saint Pat to drive out the snake in their midst. . .they'll have to do it themselves, before a murderer strikes again.

"Fans of culinary cozies by Joanne Fluke and Diane Mott Davidson will enjoy discovering Crawford."--Library Journal

Includes Original Recipes for You to Try!

Gwen (nee Katz) Silver heard the brisket at her uncle's Jewish deli, Murray the Pastrami Swami--the only one of its kind in Nashville, Tennessee--was "to die for." But she didn't realize that meant literally. . .

When Gwen Katz inherits her late uncles kosher deli, Murrays Pastrami Swami, little does she know that murder is always on the menu. Now Nashville Katz, as shes quickly nicknamed, has landed her first catering gig: Social butterfly Lolo Bakers audience-participation mystery party, where someone is “murdered” and the other guests must figure out who the killer is. Its all in good fun…until the “victim” comes crashing through the ceiling and lands—fatally—in Gwens once-tasty gravy, literally smoked to perfection.

The amateur sleuth in Gwen knows the newly deceased, Hoppy Hopewell, was in quite a pickle. He squandered his familys vast fortune while having simultaneous affairs with Nashvilles wealthiest women…many of whom were at the party. But as Gwen digs deeper, she finds the case is messier than chopped liver…and discovers that shes somehow sandwiched between her boyfriends possibly cheating heart and the deliciously handsome eyes of the detective working the case…