Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A Slice of Murder

Check Spelling
I read A Slice of Murder for the Take A Chance Challenge. This one was for my Random Book Selection. Picking a random book in a library you know by heart is hard to do. :) I chose New Fiction books because this selection is always changing-walked around the end cap a few times and grabbed a book. I was to walk around it 4 times and grab the third book I saw from the second shelf. It was A Slice of Murder by Christ Cavender which is an Alias for Tim Myers.

I love mysteries, but have to admit they get the back burner after romances, which means I don't read as many mysteries as I should or could. A Slice of Murder takes place in the small town of Timber Ridge, North Carolina. Eleanor Swift is picking up the pieces of her life after her husband Joe was suddenly killed in a car accident. She's doing this by running A Slice of Delight-a pizza parlor that she owned with her husband. She works there along with her sister Maddy and a few part time workers. One of Eleanor's high school workers calls off sick, and she's forced to make a late night pizza delivery to Richard Olson. She never gets to deliver the pizza because it turns out that someone killed him before the pizza could make it to him.

The question becomes who could have killed him? It turns out just about everyone in town. Eleanor become the prime suspect in the case, and it doesn't help that the Police of Chief used to be an old boyfriend or that his son works at her pizza parlor against his wishes. Eleanor along with her sister Maddy try clear her name, only they come up with a long list of suspects..is it the bitter ex wife? The mayors wife with whom he was having an affair with, upset because he broke off the affair? Or was it the mayor himself b/c he found out about the affair? Or maybe it's the victims sister, who stands to inherit $100,000? The list is long, and it's up to Eleanor and Maddy to find out who had the biggest motive to kill Richard Olson.

This was a cute story, and my murder solving skills are rusty because I didn't figure out who did until almost the very end! Warning: this book will make you very, very, very hungry for pizza while you read it. After reading about making pizza dough and sauce throughout the book, I was glad to see that the author included a recipe for both at the end of the book! I can't wait to try the recipes and can't believe I stumbled on a debut book in a series. I almost always start at the end of the series and work my way back..