ROSEMARY AND CRIME

A divorcée starting over gets tagged as the primary suspect in the murder of a local chef.

Piper Prescott is finally getting her due. She spent her younger years as a devoted wife and mother, but now that the ink is dry on her divorce, she’s fulfilling her lifelong dream of opening a specialty spice store in her adopted Georgia hometown. Piper is so determined to popularize her new baby, Spice It Up!, that she’s hired local chef Mario Barrone to cook up a special demonstration for her grand opening. Unfortunately, when Piper goes to Mario’s restaurant with the spice delivery he’s most recently demanded, she finds the cantankerous cook stabbed, leaving her holding the knife. Clearly, Piper’s in need of a defense lawyer to prove she had nothing to do with the murder. But the closest she can hope to get is informal advice from her ex-husband, CJ, a glorified ambulance chaser. As the citizens of Brandywine Creek pressure new police chief Wyatt McBride to make an arrest, the otherwise friendly faces Piper usually finds around town turn against Piper and her store. Her wild-child BFF Reba Mae Johnson convinces Piper that the two must take the investigation into their own hands, even though it may provoke the ire of Chief McBride.

Though the investigation is eminently predictable, Piper’s real-life problems as she negotiates her peril, along with some sassy small talk from Reba, will have fans of Oust (Shake, Murder, and Roll, 2011, etc.) looking for the sequel.