Treacherous Tart-Ellie Grant

Treacherous Tart

Ellie Grant

Pocket Books, Oct 28 2014, $7.99

ISBN: 9781451689563

Maggie Grady and her widowed Aunt Clara own Pie in the Sky in Durham, North Carolina.  The business is booming and both females have boyfriends.  Maggie met hers, reporter Ryan Summerour, when he worked on the homicide of her former New York boss (see Plum Deadly); while Aunt Clara’s Donald Wickerson is a steady customer.

Ryan writes an exposé on Donald suspected of killing several wealthy wives in what seemed like coincidental accidents that enabled him to inherit their money.  Clara reads Ryan’s article and rejects it as her Donald is sweet and kind and ergo no way a murdering widower.  When someone kills Donald in the Pie in the Sky, Maggie knows that DPD will look closely at her beloved aunt as the prime suspect just as they named her when her boss’ body was left by the pie shop’s back door (see Plum Deadly).  With Ryan at her side she investigates the homicide only to seemingly find enough people with revenge motives to fill Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The second Pie Shop mystery is an entertaining culinary cozy with a dynamic witty lead sleuths, denier Aunt Clara and several viable suspects filled with rage at the apparent uxoricide serial killer.  Team Grant provides the audience with a winning regional investigative whodunit.

Harriet Klausner