A DISH TO DIE FOR

Key West food critic Hayley Snow proves once again that she understands crime as well as cuisine.

Now that she’s married to police officer Nathan Bransford, Hayley has to be more circumspect in her sleuthing activities. But when she and a friend take their dogs for a run to Boca Chica Beach, located on Geiger Key north of Key West, and Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, digs up a body, she can’t resist getting involved. Bird-watcher Davis Jager identifies the corpse as Gerald Garcia, better known as GG, a man who had a boatload of enemies. Nathan’s stressed by his dysfunctional family. His parents are divorced, and his sister doesn’t speak to their father, a police officer who’s currently in the Keys vetting the department’s paperwork. Gossip is the lifeblood of Key West, and Hayley soon learns that GG’s suspicious business dealings pale beside his reputation as a predator who targeted younger women and even his wife’s former best friend. Hayley’s mother is hired to cater for the funeral gathering, and while cleaning up, Hayley makes a fascinating discovery at the Woman’s Club, whose cookbook provides a look at life in Key West in the 1940s. Her discovery of an old box containing a diary and sketches for the original cookbook indicates that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, since GG’s father was also a womanizer. So did GG die because of his business deals or for more personal reasons?

A suitably steamy background for a complex tale of murder and deceit.