A COOKBOOK CONSPIRACY

A bookbinder once again becomes a magnet for murder.

Brooklyn Wainwright, the bookbinder in question, lives in San Francisco with her drop-dead gorgeous boyfriend, Derek, a former British agent who currently does private investigations. Although she’s a dreadful cook, Brooklyn’s obsessed with food and delighted by a visit from her sister Savannah, a Cordon Bleu chef who owns a vegetarian restaurant in the Sonoma wine country. Savannah’s come to ask Brooklyn to repair a 1782 cookbook written by Obedience Green, a young woman who came to the Americas and cooked for a British general. The book is a gift for celebrity chef Baxter Cromwell, who’s invited all his buddies from their school days in Paris to the opening of his new restaurant. Brooklyn, who spent a summer living with the group, is included. At the special opening, the book, which Baxter accepts rather tepidly, elicits odd reactions from some of the other chefs. When Baxter is found stabbed to death, Savannah clutching a bloody knife, Brooklyn, whose past has included a number of unwelcome murder investigations (Peril in Paperback, 2012, etc.), enlists Derek to help find the real killer and the vanished cookbook. As it turns out, Baxter’s friends all had good reason to loathe him, so Brooklyn has loads of suspects. A second murder only adds urgency to her quest for the truth.

Carlisle’s eighth Bibliophile mystery provides interesting suspects, a historical puzzle and the usual appended recipes.