Death Al Dente

Food Lovers' Village Mystery #1

by Leslie Budewitz

Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

August 6, 2013

ISBN-10: 0425259544

ISBN-13: 9780425259542

Available in: Paperback

Read an Excerpt

Death Al Dente
by Leslie Budewitz

FIRST IN A NEW SERIES!

The town of Jewel Bay, Montana—known as a Food Lovers’ Village—is obsessed with homegrown and homemade Montana fare. So when Erin Murphy takes over her family’s century-old general store, she turns it into a boutique market filled with local delicacies. But Erin’s freshly booming business might go rotten when a former employee turns up dead...

Murphy’s Mercantile, known as the Merc, has been a staple in Jewel Bay for over a hundred years. To celebrate their recent makeover as a gourmet food market, Erin has organized a town festival, Festa di Pasta, featuring the culinary goods of Jewel Bay’s finest—including her mother Fresca’s delicious Italian specialties.

But Erin’s sweet success is soured when the shop’s former manager, Claudette, is found dead behind the Merc on the Festa’s opening night. With rival chef James Angelo stirring up rumors that Fresca’s sauce recipes were stolen from Claudette, Erin’s mother is under close scrutiny. Now Erin will have to hunt down some new suspects, or both her family and her store might wind up in hot water...

INCLUDES FRESH, DELICIOUS RECIPES!



Leslie Budewitz's Bio

Leslie Budewitz blends her passion for food, great mysteries, and her native Montana in The Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries for Berkley Prime Crime. New York Times best-selling mystery writer Sofie Kelly calls it “A delicious new series.” Award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan says of Death al Dente, first in the series, “Clever, charming and completely yummy.”

Leslie is also a lawyer. She graduated from Notre Dame Law School, practiced in Seattle for several years, then returned to Montana, where she still practices civil litigation and employment law. Her first book, Books, Crooks & Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law and Courtroom Procedure, won the 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction and was nominated for the 2012 Anthony and Macavity awards.

A true believer in the power of writers helping other writers, Leslie is an active member of Sisters in Crime and is a founding member of the SinC chapter for new and unpublished writers, the Guppies. She is also a member of Mystery Writers of America, the Authors of the Flathead, and Montana Women Writers.

Leslie loves to cook, eat, hike, travel, garden, and paint—not necessarily in that order. She lives in northwest Montana with her husband, Don Beans, a musician, writer, and doctor of natural medicine, and their Burmese cat, Ruff, an avid bird watcher.