Culinary Mystery

When Lana Lee’s best friend, Megan Riley, asks her to help host a speed dating contest at Ho-Lee Noodle House, she doesn’t see the harm in lending a hand. The night goes better than anticipated, and both Lana and Megan are beyond thrilled with the results. But before they can break out the champagne, Rina Su, fellow Asia Village shop owner and speed dating participant, calls to inform Lana that the date she’s just matched with has been murdered. Under suspicion of foul play, Rina enlists Lana’s help in finding out what really happened that night.

The relationships between bad-tempered Tom Farley and his neighbors are as bitter as a bowl of raw cranberries, but would one of them have taken it far enough to replace birdshot with a real bullet and make him a target at a shooting competition?

Krissy Hancock is staying in her adopted hometown of Pine Hills, Ohio, for Christmas this year - and she even has a whole week off from her combination bookstore-cafe. Unfortunately, she's been roped into filling in for a sick elf in the local holiday musical extravaganza. With a demanding director, backstage gossip, and two men in fierce competition for the starring role, it isn't all sweetness and Christmas lights. Then a murder puts a stop to the production, and Krissy is faced with a pageant of suspects.

It's Alpenfest in Upper Sprocket! Yodelers are congregating in the square, tourists flocking to the town, and Trinidad Jones is scooping up some fall flavors at her Shimmy and Shake Shop. The cherry on the sundae is her upcoming feature in The Scoop magazine. She's determined to serve up the perfect interview, but it won't be easy, thanks in part to her meddling Cuban grandfather, Papa Luis, who has decided to make Sprocket his home, setting himself up as a taxi driver in his classic 1951 Buick. But things take a turn when Papa Luis tells her he's found a corpse in his trunk.

Bar Harbor, Maine, is quieter in the off-season, but the population has just increased a bit with the arrival of Tim and Trudy Lancaster. Tim's taking over for a retiring minister, and Trudy runs a food truck called Wicked 'Wiches. When she stops in at the Island Times office to place an ad, Hayley happily devours the sample sub Trudy offers - and the two become fast friends. But when Trudy tragically dies in her truck while catering a Halloween party, suspicion falls on a cranky, competitive caterer who'd made veiled threats to Trudy.

It's springtime in Honeytree, and Leona's pullets are finally laying. Customers are flocking to buy her farm-fresh eggs. But during the town's Easter Egg Scramble, Leona finds more than hidden treasure when she stumbles on the dead body of the pastor's wife. And the death isn't a fluke - it was poison. After Leona's eggs are blamed for delivering the fatal dose, her customers fly the coop along with her reputation. With her nest egg dwindling, she doesn't have time to brood. She must figure out who held a grudge against Honeytree's golden girl - and why.

Business is bubbling at Mia's catering service and cooking school, Mia's Morsels, but toil and trouble are not far behind. Mia just accepted her toughest gig yet: last-minute wedding planner for Magic Springs' own Romeo and Juliet. Though the small town is fairly accepting of magic, two families have been locked in a vicious feud spanning generations. Unfortunately for both families, they're about to become in-laws! But when she goes to pick up paperwork from the couple's previous wedding planner, Mia discovers the woman murdered in an apparent attempt to stop the contentious union.

Every journey might start with a single step, but where does it end? Albert Smith and his faithful dog, Rex Harrison, have been on the road for far longer than they ever expected, but they can’t go home yet. Not until they solve one final case.

Known as “the Julia Child of mystery writers,” Diane Mott Davidson cooks up gourmet culinary mysteries sure to please the most discriminating palates. Mystery connoisseurs relish her elaborate plots and fast-paced action amid scenic Colorado settings. The luscious recipes included at the end are icing on the cake. Caterer-turned sleuth Goldy Schulz has an unbelievably chaotic life, but she is uncommonly determined.

Jules Capshaw is still chewing over her husband Carlos’s return to Ashland, Oregon. Could there be too many cooks in the kitchen? Whatever is stirring between those two will have to wait. Despite the Oregon Shakespeare Festival being dark for the winter, the bakeshop is bustling, the dough is rolling, and there’s no rest for the weary...especially when murder is thrown into the mix. When Mindy Nolan, the owner of a new restaurant in town, turns up dead, the batter at hand thickens.

After a cupcake-flinging fiasco at a photo shoot for a local magazine, Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura agree to make amends by hosting a week-long corporate boot camp at Fairy Tale Cupcakes. The idea is the brainchild of billionaire Ian Hannigan, new owner of SWS, a lifestyle magazine that chronicles the lives of Scottsdale's rich and famous. He's assigned his staff to a team-building week of making cupcakes for charity. It's clear that the staff would rather be doing just about anything other than frosting baked goods.

It's summertime, but sales at their bakery are below zero, so Mel and Angie are willing to try anything to heat things up! When local legend Slim Hazard offers them a chance to sell cupcakes at the annual Juniper Pass rodeo, they're determined to rope in a pretty payday! But not everyone at the Juniper Pass is as sweet for Fairy Tale Cupcakes as Slim - including star bull-rider Ty Stokes.

I can remember a time when I baked for fun. I loved dreaming up new recipes, trying different combinations of flavors. Sharing my creations with friends and family. Now? I have nightmares where the TV cameras are on me and I’m baking naked. Or I open my oven and my cake pans are empty. You don’t need to be Freud to figure out I’m freaking out. This week on The Great British Baking Contest could be my last. I am one bad bake away from being waved good-bye.

Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors—many from her grandmother's original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: The day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village. Then Win finds a body in the snow....

Burned-out chef Max Effort-he still hates his parents for the name-is slowly settling into van life. Used to swanky kitchens and state-of-the-art equipment, he's even mastered cooking outside without the flame blowing out. One-pot cooking or bust was Max's promise to himself, but the joys of letting his dinner simmer for hours on lazy summer days are soon on the back-burner when murder rears its ugly head once more.

On Valentine's Day, Winifred Page-Lopez escapes the gossip and town drama to retreat into the mystery room of the Cozy Corgi Bookshop and Bakery, with a crackling fire, a favorite romance, and her corgi, Watson—one-part love, one-part curmudgeon—snuggled beside her. But how can Fred ignore past hurts and betrayals when the players from her old life are setting up shop in Estes Park, turning Elkhorn Avenue into a chessboard? Plenty of dirty chais and Katie's scrumptious pop tarts, along with Leo's love and Watson's snores, bring some comfort.

To keep her cooking school and catering business, Mia's Morsels, afloat, Mia's handed off oversight to her boyfriend Trent's mother while she focuses on earning a steady paycheck. Too bad her mean-spirited boss at the lodge keeps the misery flowing as steadily as the money. At least her roommate, Christina, is still dedicated to Mia's Morsels—though she's also distracted, thanks to her clingy mother's constant demands. And the distraction only grows when Christina's old flame shows up in Magic Springs, Idaho, in his Escalade, claiming out of the blue to be her fiancé.

Amateur baker Claire Walker is thrilled to be a contestant on Britain’s Battle of the Bakers. She can almost smell the fresh pastries wafting through the air. If she can win the grand prize, she can ditch her teaching job and launch her baking career. The Viscount of Colburn, Jonathan Ainsley, is the custodian of Blackfirth Park and an eligible bachelor. He reluctantly agrees to allow the cooking competition show to film on his estate, but when a contestant is found dead soon after filming begins, Jonathan is forced to get involved.

Normally Mel and Angie wouldn't be caught dead at a beauty pageant, but when their bakery is asked to provide cupcakes for the 75th annual Sweet Tiara contest, they can't say no. Between cooking up a daily display for the three-day event and sponsoring a cupcake creation challenge for the participants, Fairy Tale Cupcakes will get great publicity. A high-strung judge targets Lupe, a young friend of Mel and Angie's, at the competition, though, and aims to take her out - by any means necessary.

Ashland is known for its Elizabethan charm and touches of Shakespeare around every corner, but the surrounding Rogue Valley draws adventure enthusiasts to its outdoor wonderland of high alpine lakes, mountain ranges, and pristine rivers. Jules Capshaw and the team at Torte have been hired to cater a weekend getaway on the mighty Rogue River. Jules is going to have to put her culinary skills to the test while baking gooey chocolate chip skillet cookies over an open flame and preparing extravagant feasts under a canopy of stars.