Key West food critic Hayley Snow can't wait to sample classic Scottish dishes on her long-awaited honeymoon. But it wouldn't be a Hayley adventure without a little family drama--and a dash of murder on the side. Lucy Burdette (The Key Lime Crime) serves up humor, long-hidden secrets and a few wild coincidences in her 11th Key West Food Critic mystery, A Scone of Contention.
It's an unusual honeymoon for Hayley and Nathan: they're staying with his sister, Vera, and have Nathan's mother and Hayley's octogenarian friend Miss Gloria in tow. Determined to enjoy the sights and scones of Scotland (while Nathan plays golf), Hayley is reluctantly drawn into the complex social dynamic among Vera and her friends. An ill-fated book project has caused some tension in the group, but things get really strange when a man falls to his death from the massive Falkirk Wheel, and it turns out he may have connections to Vera and her colleagues.
Cheerful and determined as ever, Hayley starts poking around for a solution, while squeezing in as much sightseeing and Scottish history as she can. Burdette's love for historical detail sometimes threatens to overwhelm the plot, but longtime readers of the series will enjoy seeing Hayley and Miss Gloria in a new setting. The mystery does get solved, along with an unrelated subplot taking place back home in Key West--but the real charm of this installment is Hayley's wide-eyed enjoyment of all things Scottish, especially the scones. (Recipes included, as always.) --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams