A Dish to Die For
Peace and quiet are hard to find in bustling Key West, so Hayley Snow, a food critic for Key Zest magazine, is taking the afternoon off for a tranquil lunch with Ziggy and a friend outside of town. As they enjoy the wild beach and the lunch, she realizes that her husband Nathan’s dog, Ziggy, has disappeared. She follows his barking to find him furiously digging at a shallow grave with a man’s body in it. Davis Jager, a local birdwatcher, identifies him as GG Garcia, a rabble-rousing Key West local and developer. Garcia was famous for over-development of the fragile Keys, womanizing, and refusing to follow city rules, so it’s no wonder he had a few enemies.
When Davis is attacked in the parking lot of a local restaurant after talking to Hayley and her dear friend, the octogenarian Miss Gloria, Hayley is slowly but surely drawn into the case. Hayley’s mother, Janet, has been hired to cater GG’s memorial service reception at the local Woman’s Club, using recipes from their vintage Key West cookbook. Hayley and Miss Gloria sign on to work with her, hoping to cook up some clues by observing the mourners. But the real clues appear when Hayley begins to study the old cookbook, as whispers of old secrets come to life, dragging the past into the present with murderous results.
The Details
Series: A Key West Food Critic Mystery – Book #12
Author: Lucy Burdette
Genre/Category: Cozy – Amateur Sleuth/Writer
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
ISBN: 1639100725
Page Count: 288
Rating: 
The Review
First, the rating I have given is not because A Dish to Die For is a lousy book or there is anything significantly wrong with it. I enjoyed a lot of it and liked many of the characters. But… I have not read any of the other books in this series, and it was hard for me to get a good grip on the characters. I loved the location of Key West; I also liked the birdwatcher, and the dog, Ziggy. However, I wasn’t crazy about Hayley, and I disliked her husband, Nathan. If I could have given it three and a half stars, I would have.
Hayley and a friend take their dogs with them for lunch. As they relax and enjoy the peace and quiet, Ziggy, Nathan’s dog, begins to bark, and she goes hunting for him only to discover a body. The birdwatcher, Davis, recognizes the victim immediately. Once the police show up and she gives her statement, she returns home, only to find that she can’t get the victim off her mind. Before long, she is asking questions with the intent of finding a killer. Her neighbor, Miss Gloria, offers her help, and they begin to put the pieces together between them. Hayley also discovers some of Key West’s history from an old cookbook and writes an article for the magazine she works for. But all of her questions and discoveries only lead to more questions.
The victim is a true reprobate in every sense of the word. He definitely got what was coming to him. The suspects are mainly his family, friends, business associates, and Davis, the birdwatcher. I am surprised that Ziggy wasn’t on the suspect list; everyone else was. The evidence, which there is little of, doesn’t really lead to anyone in particular. I had no idea who the killer was until the end because there was no one left who could have done it. Unfortunately, I found the killer implausible and felt as though the killer was thrown when the author finished writing the story only to realize that she had no killer. I also took issue with the fact that the friend Hayley was with when she found the body is not involved in the book at all after the first few pages. That’s probably not the case, but it is how it felt.
The writing in A Dish to Die For is good, and I am sure for fans of this series, the characters are fun and the story interesting. I disliked Hayley’s husband; I felt he was controlling and unforgiving. The way he treats his father is not the way to win over readers. Even if his father was a terrible parent, as a grown-up, Nathan should be more open to having a relationship with his dad, who is obviously trying hard to become a better person. I like Davis the birdwatcher but felt he could have been described better. I love Miss Gloria and Hayley’s family. Ziggy is a blast. The ending of the book was the most challenging part of the story. I found the unveiling to be a letdown. There were some interesting parts in this book; I love the history of the cookbook as a theme for Hayley’s writing. I liked the close-knit feel of the town and the indication that it is more than a tourist attraction. The story just didn’t click with me very well.
The Author
Lucy Burdette is the author of the popular Key West Food Critic mystery series. Her alter-ego, clinical psychologist Roberta Isleib, has also published eight mysteries, including the golf lover’s mystery series and the advice column mysteries. Lucy’s first suspense novel, Unsafe Haven, was published in December 2021.
Her books and stories have been shortlisted for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. The Key Lime Crime won the bronze medal for popular fiction from the Florida Book Awards. She’s a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime and a past president of Sisters in Crime. She currently serves as president of the Friends of the Key West Library.
More cozies readers may enjoy are The Corpse Who Knew Too Much from Debra Sennefelder’s “A Food Blogger Mystery” series or Dana Dratc’s Red Hot from her “A Red Herring Mystery” series.
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