SUGAR PLUM POISONED

When an up-and-coming singer comes to Scottsdale, Arizona, with her controlling manager, murder tags along.

Fairy Tale Cupcakes, which Melanie DeLaura owns along with Angie and Tate Harper, is set to provide a luscious assortment of treats for the VIP events surrounding Shelby Vaughn’s Christmas show. Angie met Shelby when she was opening for the Sewers, a band whose drummer was Angie’s then-boyfriend, Roach, and she loves her. Melanie, who’s married to Angie’s brother, is protective of her best friend but is slowly won over to Shelby’s side. Not only does Shelby’s manager, Doc Howard, try to run every aspect of her life, but he seems to be holding back her career by insisting that she sing only Christmas songs instead of the wildly popular numbers she wrote herself. Shelby’s only true friend seems to be Cheryl, her stylist. She has an enemy in Doc’s wife, singer Miranda Carter, whom he dumped as a client to manage Shelby. Also, the daughter of her former manager, Diana, who died in a fire, has accused Shelby of killing her. Asked by her mother to host Christmas dinner, Mel never imagines it will morph into an extravaganza that expands to include more and more guests, including Shelby and Cheryl. When Doc is found dead clutching a cupcake, Mel and her entire circle of friends and family, who’ve had plenty of previous experience solving murders, have every reason to spring into action.

Multitudes of motives make it difficult to catch the killer in this sweet tale.