Restauranteur Sally Solari
runs Gauguin, the restaurant she inherited from her late aunt.
She also helps out at her father's restaurant, Solari's. She
keeps even more busy with friends, her dog, Buster (also inherited
from the same aunt) and is now taking an open-air painting
class with her ex-boyfriend and current friend, Eric.
Solari's
is to host a sister-city dinner with well over a hundred guests,
so Sally is spending extra time to pitch in for the event.
During one of her painting classes, Buster discovers a dead
body in some seaweed and it turns out that the corpse is Gino,
an elderly gentleman who is a fisherman and a regular customer
at Solari's.
Gino
was most likely murdered, but there are reports that he left
Solari's drunk, and there is talk that Solari's was negligent
in overserving him and allowing him to walk home alone in
that condition. To make matters worse, Sally finds Gino's
cap in her father's boat. How did it get there and is it going
to make the police look closely at her dad as a suspect? Sally
hides the cap and sets out on her own investigation to find
the killer before her dad is arrested! Will the killer discover
what Sally is up to before she can find out who the murderer
really is?
This
is a very well-crafted murder mystery story, with several
subplots which are well-developed. I've read all three books
in this series and find myself growing more attached to the
characters with each book. The atmosphere of Santa Cruz, California
is set so well that I sometimes felt I could almost hear the
surf and smell the salt air. There are several good suspects,
each with their own possible motives, and I must hand it to
the author for coming up with something new and plausible
for how things went so horribly wrong for Gino.
A page-turner
of a culinary mystery I highly recommend this book. There
are even some taste-tempting recipes at the back!
Reviews
of other titles in this series
A
Measure of Murder #2
Death
al Fresco #3
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