Food critic Hayley Snow is enjoying a relaxing lunch on the beach when her dog finds a body in the sand. The deceased, a local real estate developer known as GG Garcia, had plenty of enemies, and Hayley--despite concern from her police officer husband, Nathan--is quickly drawn into investigating the case. Lucy Burdette (A Scone of Contention; The Key Lime Crime; Death on the Menu) mixes a familiar setting with new elements, including marital harmony and a cookbook of vintage recipes, in the 12th entry in her Key West Food Critic mystery series, A Dish to Die For.
Soon after Hayley finds the body, a local birdwatcher and possible witness contacts her to protest his innocence. But Hayley suspects the case has more layers than she thought when the birdwatcher is attacked. Recruiting her octogenarian neighbor, Miss Gloria, to help sift through clues, Hayley attends the victim's funeral reception (as a server for her mother's catering company), where she picks up some interesting intel. Meanwhile, Nathan's estranged father is visiting the island, and Hayley attempts to balance some strained family encounters with crime-solving and her day job, writing articles for Key Zest magazine. One of the articles involves a vintage cookbook from the Key West Woman's Club, which proves to have some interesting connections to the case.
Burdette keeps her tone light (and provides recipes, as always), but both the case and the cookbook prompt Hayley to do a bit of reflecting on her still-new marriage. A Dish to Die For is a satisfying entry in Burdette's highly entertaining cozy series. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams