BURNT ENDS

A Kansas City detective gets drawn into an accidental-death case that forces her to confront raging personal demons as she investigates members of her estranged family.

Tori Swenson doesn’t especially want to investigate a cook’s accidental death at her Uncle Charlie’s barbecue restaurant. A backsliding opioid addict, she has enough to deal with without reopening old family wounds. But she’s also determined to exact revenge on her uncle for cutting her out of the lucrative business he stole from her father, even if it means resorting to underhanded tactics like submitting a false case request to look into the cook’s death. Under pretense of seeking reconciliation, she attends a Fourth of July barbecue at Charlie’s house only to witness her uncle’s sudden, inexplicable demise. When Tori is fired from her agency for unofficially taking on the accidental death case, she knows that someone—perhaps the killer—wants her out of the way. She presses forward, seeking answers from the rich, eccentric cousins she loves and hates, even as severed piglet heads, death threats against her beloved aunt Kat, and her own intensifying addiction to OxyContin jeopardize her investigation at every turn. With every secret Tori uncovers on her quest—infidelities, abuse, and plots to gain control of (or destroy) Uncle Charlie’s barbecue empire—she comes closer to a killer who nearly transforms her into the dead meat that represents everything Tori hates about her dysfunctional family. Quirky and entertaining, this book and its unforgettable characters, tight plotting, and clever twists make for a reading experience as suspenseful as it is satisfying.

A toothsome treat of a book by a debut mystery writer.