'TIL DIRT DO US PART

A death after a dinner party presents a new case for reluctant sleuth Cameron Flaherty.

Cam is a code writer who’s reinvented herself as an organic farmer. Her plan to host a late-fall dinner for the friends, shareholders and locavores who’ve helped make her endeavor a success goes swimmingly until one of the guests is found dead in her neighbor Howard Fisher’s pigsty. Irene Burr, well-heeled and argumentative, had had words with several other party guests, including her stepson, Bobby, who repaired Cam’s barn after the fire that almost killed her (A Tine to Live, A Tine to Die, 2013). Irene also argued with Howard; her Jaguar mechanic, Simone Koyama; and Wes Ames, who objected to her plan to turn the town hall into a textile museum. The detective assigned to the case is Pete Pappas, who was not happy when Cam got involved in his last case but who seems somehow different this time. Cam is also having problems with her boyfriend, talented Swedish chef Jake Ericsson, whose jealousy over any man she talks to makes Cam uneasy. Though Cam’s still busy harvesting the last of the crops for her shareholders, she’s not too busy to take in a flock of badly neglected chickens belonging to her nemesis, Bev Montgomery, who’s getting too old to run her farm without help. When someone almost kills Cam by cutting the brake lines on her old truck, she’s more determined than ever to find the killer.

Cam’s second is only a so-so mystery but a most enjoyable look at organic farming with some charming characters and cooking suggestions thrown in.