New Release - Never Trifle with Murder by Livia J. Washburn

It’s early summer in Weatherford, Texas, and retired teacher/amateur sleuth Phyllis Newsom and fellow retiree Carolyn Wilbarger are taking British cooking classes at the local senior center in this suspenseful Fresh-Baked mystery.

In the latest from Livia J. Washburn, the nationally bestselling author of the Fresh Baked Mystery Series, Phyllis Newsom learns to make a trifle that’s to die for…

While Sam Fletcher is playing dominoes with the guys, Eve Turner is busy flirting with the English chef since she has a fascination for English accents and handsome men who can cook. This puts her in competition with a couple of other ladies from the senior center, who also have their caps set for Chef Alfred Dorrington.

The third and final class features desserts, and more than the stove heats up when the trifle is poisoned! Once again Phyllis finds herself involved in a murder case filled with hidden motives and colorful characters.

Includes recipes!

Trade Paperback contains the short story, "The Coconut Bunny Butt Caper".

EXCERPT:

Phyllis Newsom watched as her friend Sam Fletcher intently studied the dominoes arrayed in front of him. He frowned in thought, put the tip of his index finger on one of them, then moved it to another. After a couple of seconds, he picked up that domino and placed it with the other two that had already been played in the center of the table.

The man to Sam’s left slid one of his dominoes out to join the others. Sam’s partner, seated across the table from him, sighed and turned all six of his dominoes face down, then began shoving them to the center. Sam and the other two players did likewise. The sound of the dominoes hitting the table and then clicking together was almost musical.

“That was the first play in that hand,” Phyllis said. “And it’s over?”

“Well, we were set,” Sam said.

His partner, former hardware store owner Ansel Hovey, shook his head and said, “I shouldn’t’a bid on sixes. I knew better.” He gave Sam a mock glare. “I figured you’d have somethin’ better than what you threw out there.”

The man to Sam’s left, who had played the decisive domino, grinned and said, “Now, don’t give Sam a hard time, Ansel. You can only play the dominoes you’re dealt.”

“Thanks, Patrick,” Sam said. He turned his head to look up at Phyllis, who stood behind his left shoulder. “You see, once Patrick took that trick, there was no way we could make what Ansel bid. There wasn’t enough count left.”

Carolyn Wilbarger, who stood behind Sam to the right, said, “You don’t have to mansplain the game of Forty-Two to us. We’re all from Texas, you know.”

“And I’ve been playing Forty-Two for as far back as I can remember,” Phyllis added. “I understand the concept of what you’re saying, Sam. My brain’s just never been able to work fast enough to see how the whole rest of the hand is going to play out based on the first one or two tricks.”

“Your brain works plenty fast,” Sam told her. “If it didn’t, you wouldn’t have been able to solve all those murders.”

     

New Release -- The Coconut Bunny Butt Caper by Livia J. Washburn

A Fresh Baked Mystery Short Story

Zachary “Buck” Williams asks Phyllis to help him throw a big Easter shindig with games and food and an egg hunt, inviting everybody from the whole county to join in the fun.

It’s a beautiful spring day in Weatherford, Texas, as kids are running and playing and parents are chatting and sampling wonderful home cooked foods. It was all fun and games until someone played hide and seek with the prize egg leaving Phyllis having to find the culprit.

The Coconut Bunny Butt Caper is a short story that follows DEATH BAKES A PECAN PIE the fourteenth novel in the critically acclaimed and best-selling Fresh Baked Mystery series. Phyllis and her friends tackle another complex case with all the humor, camaraderie, good-hearted warmth, and delicious recipes that have made readers around the world fall in love with this series.

Recipes included!

EXCERPT

     On a beautiful spring day under an almost cloudless blue sky, Phyllis Newsom smiled as she watched the crowd of children running and screaming across the vast green lawn. They descended on the shrubbery and flowerbeds like a swarm of locusts.

     “Dang,” Sam Fletcher said as he stood beside Phyllis. “Don’t get between a kid and an Easter egg, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

     “They’re certainly enthusiastic,” Phyllis agreed. “This reminds me of the big Easter egg hunts that went on when we were young, and even when Mike was a child. I remember taking him to several of them, sometimes put on by family, sometimes by the community or one of the local service clubs. People don’t do things like that anymore. Not much, anyway.” She shook her head. “Just another way that things have changed, I suppose.”

     “They’ve got a way of doin’ that,” Sam said. “But bringin’ back the old days was sort of the whole idea of this fandango, wasn’t it? 

New Release — Death Bakes a Pecan Pie (Fresh Baked Mystery Book 14) by Livia J. Washburn

It’s time for the Harvest Festival again, and Phyllis is determined to bake a killer pecan pie. 

Hollywood comes to Weatherford, Texas, as a movie company arrives to shoot scenes for a film based on the novel by Phyllis Newsom’s friend Eve. But movie fantasy turns to deadly reality as a murder recreated for film turns out to be the genuine article, and once more Phyllis has to track down a cunning killer to see that justice is done.

DEATH BAKES A PECAN PIE is the fourteenth novel in the critically acclaimed and best-selling Fresh Baked Mystery series. Phyllis and her friends tackle another complex case with all the humor, camaraderie, good-hearted warmth, and delicious recipes that have made readers around the world fall in love with this series.

Recipes included!

EXCERPT

     The second assistant director slated the shot. Everyone had fallen silent now, so the sharp noise of the clapper coming down on the slate could be heard throughout the park. Phyllis heard Thorpe call, “Action.”

     Melissa and Julie walked toward the bales. Phyllis could hear them saying their lines to each other, although she couldn’t make out all the words. Honestly, she didn’t remember what she and Carolyn had said on that day. They had been talking about the festival, she recalled, but Eve had made up their dialogue when writing the book and then that dialogue had been adapted further in the script by Jason and Deanne Wilkes, so it wasn’t exactly like it had been in real life.

     There were other differences as well, Phyllis realized. She frowned and said, “The scarecrow was standing up when it happened, with a pole through his clothes to keep him upright. That’s the way you wrote it in the book, Eve.”

     “Yes, but it’s easier to film with him sitting down,” Eve said. “That’s what Jason and Deanne told me. They change a lot of things in a movie because it’s easier.”

     “I suppose,” Phyllis said. She knew logically that it didn’t matter. The scene would still be very dramatic.

     Down in the dogtrot, Melissa and Julie turned to the scarecrow, and Melissa reached out to adjust the way the prop was sitting. Phyllis leaned forward, knowing this was when “Peggy Nelson” would discover the scarecrow was really a corpse.

     Suddenly, Melissa leaped backward. A scream ripped from her mouth.

     “Goodness!” Carolyn exclaimed. “She’s really putting a lot into it.”

     Phyllis caught her breath as Melissa continued to scream. She backpedaled away from the scarecrow so fast she stumbled, lost her balance, and sat down hard on the ground.

     And all the time she was still screaming . . .

      

New Release -- The Case of the Vanishing Chef (A P.I. Berger Mystery Book 2) by Harol Marshall #FemaleSleuth #MysteryNovel

When Cinda Mae Bradbury, former stripper turned restaurateur, asks Hollywood P.I. Polly Berger to find her missing chef, Polly ends up tracking down a murderer instead. Is a “killer” mole poblano recipe enough to murder someone for? Cinda Mae believes someone kidnapped her chef, Henry, but L.A. Detective Johnny Birdwhistle thinks Henry could be on the run after murdering his competitor.

Polly’s caught in the middle—trying to stay alive long enough to solve the case one way or the other. Throw a gun-wielding brother-in-law in search of Polly’s twin sister in the mix, and another murder is imminent!

When Polly’s sister is kidnapped, Polly understands that family is more important than she ever realized before—and she’ll do anything to protect Franny. But to save her sister, she’s got to solve THE CASE OF THE VANISHING CHEF!

EXCERPT

     When my part-time secretary Bernardo 'Bunny' Contreras, ambled into my private office in Hollywood and closed the door behind him it meant one thing. It used to mean two things, but based on the current state of our relationship a new client must have walked in our front door—a prosperous client, I hoped, because the balance sheet of my firm, Berger Investigations, Inc., read Red with a capital R.

     My name is Pauline Isabel Berger, which makes me a P.I. by name, as well as by trade, and I’ve been in business going on three years. My offices are located in 'Tinsel Town,' seven blocks from the intersection of Hollywood and Vine, which puts us on the wrong side of the tracks, but the right side of the law.  

     In addition to working for me, Bunny is also my karate instructor and swing dance partner. On weekends he earns his chops as a standup comic, which is why he only works for me part-time. At the age of twenty-six he's twelve years my junior. Well, twelve years I admit to.

     I looked up to see Bunny leaning against the frame of my office door grinning his lop-sided grin. "You'll never guess who's here." My heart sank.

     "Do I wanna know?" I hadn’t meant to sound so grouchy, but Mondays are not my favorite day.

      "Y'all might," he drawled.

     I interpreted his drawl to mean the visitor waiting in the outer office was our previous client, one Cinda Mae Bradbury, former stripper turned restaurateur.

     "Okay, fill me in. Bun. How long's it been anyway?"

     "Coupla weeks. Enough time for her to finish shutting down The CatWalk and open La Gringa's, and I quote, ‘the best Mexican food west of east L.A.' She's been open for two weeks but you've kept me so busy running errands for the shyster frats, I haven't had time to give it a try. Wanna go there for lunch?"

     "Depends on whether I have an appetite after we meet. Show her in." I took a deep breath preparing to face my client whose murdered husband almost led to my own death, though not by her.