A Catered New Year's Eve

September 30, 2019
Crawford’s convoluted 15th mystery with recipes (after 2018’s A Catered Cat Wedding) opens with Ada Sinclair, a distant relative of Bernie and Libby Simmons, owners of their late mother’s café in Longely, N.Y., inviting the sisters to cater a New Year’s Eve party. Bernie hopes that Ada’s outreach signals an end to a long-standing family feud, even after the sisters’ father, retired cop Sean Simmons, warns them that the Sinclairs are the very definition of dysfunction. Ada has discovered a notebook that she believes proves her father’s death 10 years earlier was murder, and she intends to present her evidence at midnight and reveal the killer. But the party ends abruptly when a guest collapses and dies after being pricked by a needle embedded in her Christmas popper. Fearing she’ll be framed for murder, Ada flees. Bernie and Libby determine to uncover the truth, and thus ensues a quagmire of activity involving secret meetings, car chases, breaking and entering, and endless banter between the two sisters. Established fans will best appreciate this one. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency.

September 15, 2019
Ada Sinclair's request to Bernie and Libby Simmons, proprietors of A Little Taste of Heaven caf�, to cater her family's New Year's Eve dinner takes the sisters by surprise: she introduces herself as a cousin they didn't know. Their father warns them about becoming involved, as even his deceased wife, normally tolerant, had cut off contact with the Sinclair branch of her family years before; he asserts that there will be trouble. Bernie and Libby should have listened. Despite bitter cold and a raging blizzard, the evening goes as planned?until the guests open the Christmas poppers, and one guest falls dead, poisoned. Ada goes into hiding, and a few days later her uncle is killed in a hit-and-run. Bernie and Libby try to find Ada, believing her innocent, following leads across an icy and cold Westchester County. Fast paced and lively as the sisters shoehorn their investigation into busy days at the caf�, alternately bickering and collaborating on both fronts, this mystery with recipes will appeal to fans of Joanne Fluke and Laura Childs.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)