Kill 'Em with Cayenne

October 20, 2014
In Oust’s tasty sequel to 2013’s Rosemary and Crime, the annual Brandywine Creek, Ga., barbecue festival is a boom time for Spice It Up!, the shop of fresh and exotic spices of divorced mom Piper Prescott. The return of Brandywine native Barbara Bunker Quinlan, who hosts a new show on the Cooking Network, adds an unexpected jolt to the festival. With a chip on her shoulder and scores to settle, Quinlan immediately clashes with attractive Becca Dapkins, who has already clashed with Maybelle Humphries, manager of the town’s chamber of commerce, whose boyfriend Becca stole. When Piper finds Becca under an azalea bush, bludgeoned to death with a frozen brisket, police chief Wyatt McBride views Maybelle as his prime suspect. Sleuthing takes a backseat to such relationship difficulties as Piper’s attraction to dangerously handsome Wyatt and her 16-year-old daughter Lindsey’s infatuation with an older boy. Plenty of spice lore adds flavor to this amiable mystery. Agent: Jessica Faust, BooksEnds.

December 1, 2014

Piper Prescott's spice shop in Brandywine Creek, GA, is flourishing, and the town is gearing up for the annual barbecue festival. Things are great until the body of Becca Dapkins is found bludgeoned by a brisket, and Piper has to investigate to clear her friend's name in this sequel to Rosemary and Crime.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2014
Piper Prescott's shop, Spice It Up!, on the town square in Brandywine Creek, Georgia, is a busy place in the days before the annual Barbecue Festival, attracting local cooks and visiting ones alike, all seeking the edge they need to be the best. In full view of two out-of-towners, Maybelle and Becca squabble, again, over Maybelle's former and now Becca's current boyfriend, with Becca's parting shot being, Over my dead body! Unfortunately, Becca's dead body is found the next morning by Piper's dog. Things heat up still more when flashy, buxom Barbie Q, a food-show host, sails into town hoping to do a segment on the festival. Except that what she really wants is to expose her hometown as the place she endured as Barbara Bunker, bookish teenager from the wrong side of town. Barbie Q's past isn't the only history Piper and her pal Reba Mae uncover in an effort to keep their friend Maybelle from being arrested. For readers who enjoy the small-town camaraderie of Laura Childs' series or Carolyn Hart's Death on Demand series. Includes recipes and a guide to peppers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)