A catered book club murder

In Crawford's delectable 16th mystery featuring sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons (after 2019's A Catered New Year's Eve), art restorer Margo Hemsley fails to arrive at A Little Taste of Heaven, the sisters' shop in Longely, N.Y., to pick up the pastry order she was supposed to bring to a book club meeting later that same evening. The next day, Margo's friends Betsy and Tom Glassberg visit the shop. Betsy and Tom, who are worried that Margo has gone missing, ask amateur sleuths Bernie and Libby to investigate, the police having little interest in the case. The Glassbergs also want them to check that two Thomas Eakins portraits Margo was working on restoring for them are in her house. The sisters discover the portraits have vanished along with Margo. Descriptions of mouthwatering baked goods and good-natured banter between the sisters enhance their search for answers. Cozy fans will be tempted to curl up with a hot beverage and a pastry while reading this one. Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (Jan.)

The sisters who own and operate A Little Taste of Heaven get their 16th dose of murder. Artist and restorer Margo Hemsley practically poops on a schedule. So when she doesn't show up on time with the baked treats from A Little Taste she's promised the other members of the Longely Mystery Book Club, they instantly go looking for her. She doesn't answer her door, and her beat-up Camry is gone from her driveway. Whatever could have happened to her? Since Detective Andredi, of the Longely Police Department, isn't interested in her disappearance, Betsy and Tom Glassberg, on behalf of the club, offer Libby and Bernie Simmons $1,500 to find her, and the sisters promptly turn up her corpse in a local swamp. In the absence of any wounds, a police lieutenant assures everyone her death was accidental, but no one is reassured. Soon the club members, properly respectful of Libby and Bernie's track record, ask them to investigate what everyone but the police assumes is a homicide. Learning that Margo, a terrible driver, owned three much pricier cars she kept in storage at Freelander's Garage, the sisters focus on Tommy Chung, the ex-con who owns Freelanders, and he obligingly does everything he can to act guilty, refusing to talk to them, ordering his employee Jason Sitwell to do the same, and threatening them if they keep asking questions. Luckily for Tommy, Libby and Bernie find enough other evidence to implicate Margo in several possible felonies that seem completely independent of him. Remarkably little detail about the suspects, the book club, the killer, or even the three appended recipes. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.