Murder at First Slice

Maddy Montgomery used to be a social media star. Now she runs a bakery in New Bison, Michigan, with her English mastiff at her side, and her wedding is only days away. Family and friends are pouring into town, and the crowd has Maddy wondering whether her widowed father and the local innkeeper, Mrs. Law, might be heading for a happy ending of their own.

Not everyone is in a festive mood. Cousins Hannah and Dorothy haven't exchanged a word in decades, and both are in town for the celebrations. Maddy's only real worry is that the grand wedding cake her head baker has made won't end up flung across the room in a food fight.

The trouble comes sooner than that. Dorothy, a domineering woman, turns up at the rehearsal dinner with a handful of guests nobody invited and spends the evening complaining about everything, until the whole event feels like a reality-show episode. By the next day she is dead, and Hannah is found standing over her with a bloody rolling pin.

The townspeople are certain gentle, forgetful Miss Hannah could never kill anyone. The new detective, freshly arrived from New York, has no such history with her, and the evidence looks like an easy case to close. So Maddy turns to her circle of amateur investigators, the Baker Street Irregulars, and starts looking into Dorothy's past. She has to find the real killer before it's time to cut the cake. This is a cozy culinary mystery from Valerie Burns.