A POISONOUS PALATE

A cold case heats up in the Florida Keys.

When restaurant critic and amateur sleuth Hayley Snow—who lives on a houseboat in Key West with her police lieutenant husband, Nathan Bransford—receives an email from author Catherine Davitt asking for help investigating a 40-year-old disappearance, she’s both curious and suspicious. As it has in many prior cases, her curiosity wins out, much to Nathan’s dismay. Catherine, who’s in town researching a Hemingway book, spent some time in 1978 in a nearby hippie encampment with her friend Veronica, who went missing and was never found. According to Catherine, the police brushed her off at the time and forced everyone to leave before bulldozing the encampment. A trip to Big Pine Key, where it all happened, reveals some of the original group still living in the area. Handsome group leader Arthur is now a veterinarian; Ginny is a waitress at the No Name Pub; and Ned, an older guy who used to hang around the camp, still owns a decrepit motel. When Hayley and Catherine visit Ned, they find him fatally stabbed with a pair of scissors. Although the police still think Veronica left on her own, the murder opens up a whole new field of investigation. Hayley’s research shows that the camp was a hotbed of drugs, sex, and toxic jealousy stirred up by the beautiful Veronica, who had all the men pursuing her. All these motives put the ever-curious Hayley in a dangerous position as she searches for the truth.

A fascinating mix of Hemingway lore, flashbacks to the 1970s, and appended recipes.