Please Welcome Guest Leslie Budewitz - Shrimp! Salad

Thanks. Mystery Lovers, for inviting me – I brought dinner!

Summer comes slowly to the mountain valleys of Northwest Montana, but it is worth the wait. Gloriously long days – we’re at 48 degrees of latitude, and the sky lightens way before I’m up, and gives us splendid evenings to sail, or to relax on the deck with a leisurely dinner. Not too hot, either. This shrimp and vegetable salad is a meal-in-a-bowl that won’t keep you slaving over a hot stove, and keeps well. I like to use a mix of herbs–what ever is fresh in the pots on the deck. And it’s perfect for a summer potluck!

 (A 2-pound bag of shrimp from Costco is just right for this salad – but don’t tell Erin Murphy, my protagonist. She worked as a grocery buyer at fictional competitor SavClub before coming home to Jewel Bay, and still shops there whenever she can!)

HAIL TO THE SHRIMP! SALAD

2 pounds medium shrimp, cooked and peeled, thawed

1/3 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

½ to 2/3 cup olive oil

1 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces

1 celery heart, with leaves, sliced 1/4 inch thick

6-8 green onions, with about half the green stem, thinly sliced

1 red or yellow bell pepper, cut into ½ inch pieces

1 cucumber, peeled, quartered, and cut into 1/4 thick slices (an English cucumber is great, but a garden slicer works well, too)

1 pound or more cherry or grape tomatoes, any color, halved

1 cup pitted Kalamata olives, halved

1/4 cup, more or less, of fresh herbs: a combination of chives, basil, parsley, and oregano is excellent

Make the dressing: Thaw the shrimp and place in a medium bowl. Combine the lemon juice, salt and pepper, and mustard in a small mixing bowl. Pour the olive oil in slowly, whisking so the dressing doesn’t separate. Pour half the dressing over the shrimp and mix well; cover and refrigerate.

Prepare the vegetables: Cook the beans in boiling water 2-3 minutes, until tender-crisp. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. Chop the remaining vegetables and place all veggies and herbs in a large bowl. Pour in the remaining dressing and stir to coat thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate if you’re making this ahead.

About half an hour before serving, add the shrimp to the vegetables. Taste for seasoning, and add more salt, pepper, lemon juice, or herbs as needed.

To serve: Serve in pasta bowls or mounded on plates. This salad is also nice over mixed greens. Slice up a crunchy loaf of bread, open a bottle of a crisp Pinot Grigio, and raise your glass. Salut!

I hope your summer is as delicious as mine!

Yummy shrimp

Fresh herbs

Chopped ingredients ready to go

 

A delicious summer salad to enjoy on the deck or patio

Death al Dente, first in the Food Lovers' Village Mysteries, debuts from Berkley Prime Crime on August 6. The town of Jewel Bay, Montana—known as the Food Lovers' Village—is obsessed with homegrown and homemade Montana fare. So when Erin Murphy takes over her family's century-old general store, she turns it into a boutique market filled with local delicacies. But Erin's freshly booming business might turn rotten when a former employee turns up dead.

Leslie is also a lawyer. Her first book, Books, Crooks & Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law & Courtroom Procedure (Quill Driver Books) won the 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction, and was nominated for Anthony and Macavity awards.

Leslie lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their Burmese cat, Ruff. See Ruff on the cover of Death al Dente and visit Leslie online at  www.LeslieBudewitz.com or www.Facebook.com/LeslieBudewitzAuthor

Sunday Brunch - Salad as a Meal #giveaway

 

TINA KASHIAN: Welcome to our Sunday Brunch! This is my first time hosting a Sunday Brunch and I’m excited to pick a topic to chat with our wonderful readers. During the summer we eat different types of salads, and they are often the main course about two times a week. I love Mediterranean and Middle Eastern salads like tabouleh, chickpea salad, cold couscous salad with kalamata olives, and fattoush, a Lebanese salad with pita chips that serve as croutons. We use vegetables from our garden and wait for our tomatoes to ripen, our cucumbers to grow, and our herbs such as mint and parsley to be ready. Many of these salads use lemon juice and olive oil as a dressing instead of mayonnaise and are healthy.

So, today’s Sunday Brunch questions are: How often do you eat salad as a meal? And what is your favorite type of salad? Please share because there will be a book giveaway you don’t want to miss! (Please leave your email address for a chance to win.)

 🍋 🌿 🍒

 

MADDIE: I love salad as a meal. I posted the recipe for a simple version the day after Thanksgiving last year. At this time of year, I often make my favorite Greek salad, also simple, featuring homegrown gold cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, and oregano, plus feta cheese, Kalamata olives, and olive oil. 

Add a crusty baguette to soak up the oil and juices and you have dinner! 

🥗🍅🥒

VICKI: I enjoy a chicken salad all year round.  Nothing could be easier.  Grill a chicken breast and then slice it and add to lettuces,. tomatoes, maybe some cucumber or zucchini.  i like sunflower seeds and dried cranberries for crunch, and a sturdy homemade dressing. 

When fresh tomatoes are at the farm stand, I love to do an Italian bread salad. I shared my favourite way of preoparing it on the blog a while ago.  Mystery Lovers' Kitchen: Bread salad (mysteryloverskitchen.com)

🍋 🌿 🍒

MIA: I'll have to admit to not being a huge salad as a meal fan. It's fine as an accompaniment, but it often leaves me feeling unsatisfied. I'm a big fan of caprese, chickpea, and other Mediterranean-style salads, like the ones Tina mentioned, but the one I was absolutely obsessed with last year was Mary Anne Mohanraj's kale sambol. If you had told me pre-pandemic that I would be making kale salad every single week throughout the summer, I wouldn't have believed you. But there's something so addictive about the combination of finely shredded kale, cherry tomatoes, onion, coconut, lime, and sugar. Just make sure to have a nice curry or chunk of protein on the side.

🌿🍅🥥

LESLIE KARST: My mother was famous for her massive bowls of salad for dinner, with the rule being, “No one leaves the table until the salad’s all gone.” So I admit to being a bit of a salad freak, and Robin and I have it as the main course of our dinner at least once a week. One of my favorites is Salade Lyonnaise, which is frisée lettuce, bacon, poached eggs, and a red wine vinagrette. But sometimes it’s lettuce with whatever leftovers happen to be in the fridge, such as this one with the previous night’s roasted veggies, along with bleu cheese, croutons, and a simple vinaigrette.

Or this one with baby spinach, avocado, orange, and pickled onion.

And to round out our salad dinner, we most always accompany it with crunchy French bread and butter—which may be the best part of the meal!

🍄🌿🍋

MAYA: I enjoy Salade Nicoise, named for the French Riviera city of Nice. The salad features ingredients associated with Mediterranean diets, though not all of these will be in every salad: tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, olives, tuna or anchovies, green beans, potatoes, peppers, cucumbers, leaf lettuce. I use whatever I have on hand with a vinaigrette dressing and crusty bread.

I recently shared a recipe for the Mediterranean tuna salad that appears in both photos. 

🌿 🍒🌿

LUCY BURDETTE: Hmmm, these all look so good! Makes me think we should do this more often. And I do make the wonderful Italian bread salad when our garden is full of tomatoes and cukes. And here's a watermelon, cuke and feta salad that's wonderful--though I don't think my hub would consider this dinner!

🌿🍆🍅

MOLLY MACRAE: Oh salad, how do we love you? Let me count the ways. 

With beans and rice, oh so nice, 

Sweet potato,

Fresh tomato,

With cheese? Yes, please!

Fruit salad or salad roasted, 

Add some nuts lightly toasted,

Crisp, delicious and all green,

Salad, salad, you are Queen. 

We eat salad for supper at least twice a week throughout the year. I have so many pictures of salads, it was hard to choose one. But here's roasted beet and radish salad with sunflower seeds and fresh orange on a bed of mixed greens and fresh dill - mmm mm!

🍅🍄🍅

LESLIE BUDEWITZ:  We, too, are huge fans of meal salads, as well as green salads on the side. Not big on fruit salad--and I certainly don't consider it dessert! (The only time we insist on a fruit salad is for our annual holiday brunch, when a good friend brings a huge bowl of the stuff with a honey-based dressing and it's delicious, partly because we rarely eat it any other time!) Having a big bowl of salad, whether it's a green salad or something more substantial, in the fridge, gives me a very satisfying feeling of abundance. To be a meal salad, though, it really ought to include some kind of protein, whether it's chicken, shrimp, cheese, or as in this Herbed Black Bean Pasta Salad, a combo of black beans and carbs. It originally appeared in Killing Thyme, my third Seattle Spice Shop mystery, and more than one reader told me they loved how Pepper used the salad to catch a killer! Happily, you don't have to be setting a trip or stalking a killer to enjoy it. Hmm, maybe we'll enjoy a big bowl of it this weekend.  

🍓🍗🍓

MARY JANE MAFFINI  I always enjoy the talk around the table at Sunday Brunch!  Thanks for a fun topic, Tina.  I must confess that I have never been a been lover of main dish salads, although we almost always have salad as a side.  My hubby is the king of all things salad-y, so it depends on who is making the meal whether it’s the main.  Having said that, we are dealing with July heat and humidity and there’s a bumper crop of delicious local strawberries. Fired up by my Mystery Lovers Kitchen colleagues talk of their fantastic salads and fed up with the steamy weather, it made sense to give a strawberry chicken salad a try.  The refreshing result was unsurprisingly a hit with the little mister but I loved it too. Who knew? Maybe because the strawberries were sweet and they played well with tart blueberries, salty feta, herbs and chicken breasts in savory dressing.   

I liked it so much I agreed to try it as soon as we get back to the strawberry stand and to pass on the recipe in a Mystery Lovers Kitchen post.  

I look forward to seeing what you readers think of salad meals and what ideas you’ll bring to our table. Molly, I loved the poem!

🌷 ☕ 🌷

CLEO COYLE: Timely topic for summer, Tina! All the salads mentioned look delicious, and I know I'd enjoy every one. I'll just add a salad that Marc and I always enjoy: potato salad! We often make it the traditional way with mayo. Today, I'll share our potato salad recipe with a hot-bacon twist, which can be a meal in itself. The original recipe was inspired by Marc's grandmother, Ethel. We even featured it in our 17th Coffeehouse Mystery SHOT IN THE DARK. If you'd like the recipe, CLICK HERE or click on the photo below. And eat with summertime joy, everyone! ~ Cleo 

Click for Cleo's recipe.

 🍋 🌿 🍒

How often do you eat salad as a meal?

And what is your favorite type of salad?

GIVEAWAY! 

To be entered in this week's drawing,

join us in the comments.

How often do you eat salad as a meal?
And what is your favorite type of salad? 

Include your email address,

so we can contact the winner!

Comments Open through

Wednesday, July 21

> MURDER AT THE LOBSTAH SHACK (ARC)

by Maddie Day

> ONE FETA IN THE GRAVE

by Tina Kashian

> A MEASURE OF MURDER

by Leslie Karst

Comments Open through

Wednesday, July 21

Don't forget to include

an email address!

📚 

10th Anniversary -- Hail to the Shrimp Salad from Leslie Budewitz

LESLIE: We're celebrating the 10th anniversary of Mystery Lovers' Kitchen this week, with reprises of recipes we posted early on, and a fantastic giveaway. My first post here was August 4, 2013, as a guest, celebrating the launch of Death al Dente, the first in the Food Lovers' Village series. That series is set in fictional Jewel Bay, Montana, based closely on the town where Mr. Right and I live.

I've got no idea how many times I've posted since then -- probably at least one more guest post, then on the 1st, 3d, and 5th Tuesdays since January 2015. There are now five Food Lovers' Village mysteries, two Village short stories, and four Spice Shop Mysteries. And I have absolutely adored sharing the recipes from their pages, along with many of our household faves and new discoveries, with you.

This salad is a definite keeper in our house. One of its attractions is its flexibility -- you can use a mix of herbs, whatever is fresh in the pots on your deck. It's a meal-in-a-bowl that won’t keep you slaving over a hot stove for hours, and it keeps well. Plus, it’s perfect for a summer potluck!

(A 2-pound bag of shrimp from Costco is just right for this salad – but don’t tell Erin Murphy, my protagonist. She worked as a grocery buyer at fictional competitor SavClub before coming home to Jewel Bay, and still shops there whenever she can!)

Whether you've been cooking with the Kitchen Crew from the beginning, or you've just discovered, us, I hope you're having a delicious summer!

HAIL TO THE SHRIMP! SALAD

2 pounds medium shrimp, cooked and peeled, thawed
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
½ to 2/3 cup olive oil
1 pound green beans, trimmed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1 celery heart, with leaves, sliced 1/4 inch thick
6-8 green onions, with about half the green stem, thinly sliced
1 red or yellow bell pepper, cut into ½ inch pieces
1 cucumber, peeled, quartered, and cut into 1/4 thick slices (an English cucumber is great, but a garden slicer works well, too)
1 pound or more cherry or grape tomatoes, any color, halved
1 cup pitted Kalamata olives, halved
1/4 cup, more or less, of fresh herbs: a combination of chives, basil, parsley, and oregano is excellent

Make the dressing: Thaw the shrimp and place in a medium bowl. Combine the lemon juice, salt and pepper, and mustard in a small mixing bowl. Pour the olive oil in slowly, whisking so the dressing doesn’t separate. Pour half the dressing over the shrimp and mix well; cover and refrigerate.

Prepare the vegetables: Cook the beans in boiling water 2-3 minutes, until tender-crisp. Drain and rinse with cool water to stop the cooking. Chop the remaining vegetables and place all veggies and herbs in a large bowl. Pour in the remaining dressing and stir to coat thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate if you’re making this ahead.

About half an hour before serving, add the shrimp to the vegetables. Taste for seasoning, and add more salt, pepper, lemon juice, or herbs as needed.

To serve: Serve in pasta bowls or mounded on plates. This salad is also nice over mixed greens. Slice up a crunchy loaf of bread, open a bottle of a crisp Pinot Grigio, and raise your glass. Salut!

                                     
                                                              Seasoned shrimp

                                     
                                                  Chopped ingredients ready to go

                          
                               A delicious summer salad to enjoy on the deck or patio

From the cover of CHAI ANOTHER DAY, Spice Shop Mystery #4 (Seventh St. Books, June 2019): 

 Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece probes murder while juggling a troubled employee, her mother's house hunt, and a fisherman who's set his hook for her.

As owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece is always on the go. Between conjuring up new spice blends and serving iced spice tea to customers looking to beat the summer heat, she finally takes a break for a massage. But the Zen moment is shattered when she overhears an argument in her friend Aimee's vintage home decor shop that ends in murder. 

Wracked by guilt over her failure to intervene, Pepper investigates, only to discover a web of deadly connections that could ensnare a friend - and Pepper herself.

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries, and the winner of Agatha Awards in three categories. Death al Dente, the first Food Lovers' Village Mystery, won Best First Novel in 2013, following her 2011 win in Best Nonfiction. Her first historical short story, "All God's Sparrows," won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Short Story; read it on her website. A past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America, she lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by my website and join the mailing list for my seasonal newsletter. And join me on Facebook where I announce lots of giveaways from my cozy writer friends.

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ENTER OUR 10th ANNIVERSARY

10-BOOK (+ TOTE BAG) GIVEAWAY!

And you can carry your books in this clever

tote bag with a special crossword puzzle 

featuring Mystery Lovers' Kitchen authors!

To enter our giveaway,
you must first use

the form below.

Then be sure to leave a
blog post comment.

You must do both
to be entered.

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2-WEEKS OF FAVORITE, RETRO POSTS!

We're throwing a two-week party to celebrate a decade of blogging at Mystery Lovers' Kitchen. Every day (through July 13), one of the authors of MLK will post a retro "anniversary" recipe from our blogging past. Stop back each day to see what we post. Each time you leave a comment on a post, you'll earn an extra entry in our drawing and increase your chances of winning our grand prize package. Be sure to use the entry form above to register with our contest *and* be sure to leave a blog post comment. (You must do both to be entered.)

GOOD LUCK and...

HAPPY 10th ANNIVERSARY,

MYSTERY LOVERS' KITCHEN!

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CHAI ANOTHER DAY - Agave Lime Chile Shrimp

LESLIE:  “At five-thirty, I asked Sandra to handle closing, grabbed my dog and cherries, and headed home. Flick Chicks is as much about friendship and food as the movies, and when the week starts with murder, I need my girlfriends more than ever.

I also needed to make sure the menu was lined up. Laurel had promised a salad and herbed cheese breadsticks—if she was firing up her commercial ovens despite the heat, why not take full advantage? For a main course, I’d planned one of our Twenty-Minute Dinners, though it was more like a fiver—Agave Lime Chili Shrimp. Shrimp are a recreational catch in Washington, not a commercial fishery, but Nate had taken me out early in the summer and we’d thrown a couple of pots over the side. Mmm, good. And I had the perfect dark chili powder to add flavor without too much heat.

My thoughts veered back to the murder investigation. Had Aimee told the detectives about the proviso in the will? If she hadn’t, should I? It supplied no motive that I could see, but as Tracy had said, anything unusual in the vicinity of the victim is worth probing. And surfaces can be deceiving.”

From CHAI ANOTHER DAY, coming June 11. (Pre-order links, reviews, and a longer excerpt on my website.) 

In the Spice Shop Mysteries, set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, Pepper and her crew create “Twenty-Minute Dinners” using ingredients readily found in the Market, including a spice or two. They print them up and set racks of these recipes and others on displays throughout the store. As Pepper says in this excerpt, this one only takes about five minutes to prepare—give the shrimp a few minutes to marinate while you throw a salad together and slice a chewy loaf of French bread.

I’ve learned from readers over the years that many of you don’t tolerate “hot” spices well. Others have had bad experiences with a brother-in-law whose specialty is too-hot chili (he drinks too much beer to notice) or other over-spiced food, and shy away from peppers. Like me, Pepper understands the reluctance to try spices that have given you trouble, but unless one really does disturb your digestion, we both want to encourage readers and eaters to try a little of any spice they fear. Start small—this recipe is perfect for that, with only half a teaspoon of chili powder for half a pound of shrimp. You can cut that in half and adjust to your own taste, if necessary. The point isn't heat, it's flavor---and peppers add great flavor to cooling foods, when used properly. 

Agave syrup is easily found in liquor stores or specialty grocers.

These shrimp make a tasty appetizer—think of them as an updated shrimp cocktail—or main course.

Agave Lime Chile Shrimp

8 ounces cooked shrimp, tail on (roughly 16 shrimp)
2 tablespoons agave nectar or syrup
2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lime juice
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
salt and black pepper, to taste
lime wedges, for serving




Place the shrimp in a large serving bowl. In a small bowl, mix the agave, lime juice, and chili powder; season with salt and black pepper to your taste.

Pour mixture over the shrimp and gently toss. Allow to marinate at room temperature.

Add a few lime wedges to the bowl for garnish, or create individual servings, each garnished with a lime wedge.

Serves 2 as a main course, 4–6 as an appetizer.

From the cover of CHAI ANOTHER DAY, Spice Shop Mystery #4 (Seventh St. Books, June 2019): 

 Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece probes murder while juggling a troubled employee, her mother's house hunt, and a fisherman who's set his hook for her.

As owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece is always on the go. Between conjuring up new spice blends and serving iced spice tea to customers looking to beat the summer heat, she finally takes a break for a massage. But the Zen moment is shattered when she overhears an argument in her friend Aimee's vintage home decor shop that ends in murder. 

Wracked by guilt over her failure to intervene, Pepper investigates, only to discover a web of deadly connections that could ensnare a friend - and Pepper herself.

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries—and the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. Her first historical short story, "All God's Sparrows," won the 2018 Agatha Award for Best Short Story; read it on her website. A past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America, she lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by my website and join the mailing list for my seasonal newsletter. And join me on Facebook where I announce lots of giveaways from my cozy writer friends.

Shrimp Fritters with Lemon Aioli #recipe @LeslieBudewitz

LESLIE: This recipe is based on one of those videos that flit across Facebook feeds. I tracked it to a blog called Natasha’s Kitchen, though of course, we changed it quite a bit. Whether you call them shrimp fritters or shrimp cakes, they really are very easy and yummy.

Fish isn’t normally mixed with cheese, but the mozzarella here works both as a binder and to form the crust, and didn’t overpower the shrimp at all. Use a dry brick-type; fresh mozzarella is hard to shred and would be too watery. And yes, it’s fine to buy it shredded and use the rest for pizza!

We discovered by accident that it’s a good idea to let the batter rest 15-20 minutes before frying the fritters. You’ll see by our photos below that the first batch took on a free-form shape; the two we fried later because they didn’t fit in the pan held a cake-like shape better.

The original recipe suggests regular or gluten-free flour. I’m not experienced with using gluten-free flour and don’t know whether it would absorb the liquid well enough to have the same thickening effect. If you try it, let me know.

If, like us, you buy bags of shrimp at Costco, you may have pre-cooked shrimp and wonder whether it will get rubbery. Don’t worry; it will be fine.

This is the full recipe; we cut it in half. Half an egg? Ours were large and I hesitated about using the full thing, so I cracked it into a small glass bowl with a lid and beat it lightly, saving the rest of the egg for breakfast.

We made these for dinner with a green salad, and the half recipe served the two of us beautifully, with no leftovers. They would also be great for brunch or as fancy appetizers.

Shrimp Fritters with Lemon Aioli

For the fritters:

1 pound large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
4 ounces mozzarella, shredded
1 large egg
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons parsley, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 cup all-purpose flour or gluten free flour
2 tablespoons olive oil, for frying

For the aioli:

1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced

If your shrimp are frozen, thaw them in a bowl of water and drain well. Pat them dry with a paper towel, then chop into bite-sized pieces.

In a large bowl, mix together the mozzarella, egg, 1/4 cup mayonnaise, parsley, salt, and pepper. Add the shrimp and stir to combine. Add flour and mix well. Let the batter rest 15-20 minutes.

Make the aioli. In a small bowl, mix the mayonnaise, zest, lemon juice, and garlic until smooth.

Heat a large frying pan to medium heat and add one tablespoon olive oil. When the oil is hot—you can test it with the tip of a wooden spoon or chopstick; if tiny bubbles form, the oil is ready—carefully place the batter in the pan, using about two tablespoons of batter for each fritter. Flatten the tops of your fritters as you go; the fritters should be about 1/2" thick. Fry until golden brown and flip, about 3 minutes on each side.

Repeat with remaining oil and batter.

Makes 12-16 fritters.

"Budewitz's finely drawn characters, sharp ear for dialogue, and well-paced puzzle make Jewel Bay a destination for every cozy fan." --- Kirkus Reviews

From the cover of AS THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CRUMBLES, Food Lovers' Village Mystery #5 (Midnight Ink, June 2018, available in trade paper, e-book, and audio):  

In Jewel Bay---Montana's Christmas Village---all is merry and bright. At Murphy’s Mercantile, AKA the Merc, manager Erin Murphy is ringing in the holiday season with food, drink, and a new friend: Merrily Thornton. A local girl gone wrong, Merrily’s turned her life around. But her parents have publicly shunned her, and they nurse a bitterness that chills Erin.

When Merrily goes missing and her boss discovers he’s been robbed, fingers point to Merrily—until she’s found dead, a string of lights around her neck. The clues and danger snowball from there. Can Erin nab the killer—and keep herself in one piece—in time for a special Christmas Eve?

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries—and the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. A past president of Sisters in Crime, she lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat, an avid bird-watcher.

Swing by my website and join the mailing list for my seasonal newsletter. And join me on Facebook where I announce lots of giveaways from my cozy writer friends.