Toasting Up Trouble (A Dinner Club Mystery) Read online

  “Toasting Up Trouble [is] a savory morsel of mystery and culinary goodness. Food lovers will delight in the meal planning and the mystery as both are rich with surprising ingredients. Wiken has a winning recipe with spunky heroine J.J. Tanner and the Culinary Capers dinner club. I can’t wait to be invited to their next event.”

  —Jenn McKinlay, New York Times bestselling author

  The Heat Is On

  “Who’s the dead guy?”

  “Antonio Marcotti. He owns Bella Luna, the Italian restaurant on Lakeshore Drive.”

  “How’d he die?”

  “He was stabbed. Repeatedly.”

  “Crime of passion.” He looked at her when he came to a stop sign. “Were you passionate about the guy?”

  “Me? No way. I was mad at him because he tried to stiff me with a high-priced dish, but not mad enough to kill him.”

  “No hanky-panky going on the side?”

  “Ugh. No.” She shuddered at the thought.

  “Okay. I’d advise you to stick to the facts next time you’re being interviewed, and don’t offer anything extra. Got it?” He pulled up in front of the office.

  “Next time?”

  “Oh yeah. They’re not finished with you, not if they’re checking your clothes for traces of blood or anything else that might prove you did it.”

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  TOASTING UP TROUBLE

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2016 by Linda Wiken.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 9780698183209

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / July 2016

  Cover illustration by Anne Wertheim.

  Cover design by Katie Anderson.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  To Mom and Dad—

  Tack för allt!

  I miss you.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Starting a brand-new series is both exciting and daunting. What makes the journey such a delight are the many who join in along the way.

  I’m very touched to have the support of my sister, Lee McNeilly, who doles up equal amounts of encouragement and comments as my first reader. My long-time partner in crime, first as co-owners of a mystery bookstore, and now as a fellow writer and inspiration, Mary Jane Maffini, aka Victoria Abbott, is never too busy to read my words and tactfully steer me on the right path. Thanks, also to the amazing group of friends who were there from the beginning, my critiquing group, The Ladies’ Killing Circle: Joan Boswell, Vicki Cameron, Barbara Fradkin, Mary Jane Maffini, Sue Pike, and the late Audrey Jessup.

  I couldn’t ask for a more terrific team at Berkley Prime Crime—my delightful editor, Kate Seaver, and Katherine Pelz, assistant editor; the eagle-eyed copyeditor; the very creative artist who does my cover work; and, the extremely energetic publicist, Danielle Dill.

  My agent, Kim Lionetti from BookEnds Literary Agency, is one very savvy person who provides guidance, nurturing, and some killer titles. Thanks, as always, Kim!

  Thanks also to the booksellers, librarians, reviewers, bloggers, and readers who make this all worthwhile.

  I’d also like to acknowledge the cooking wizardry of Nigella Lawson, whose cookbook nigellissima is the basis for the very first Dinner Club Mystery. The ideas are all hers; the tweaking is all mine. What fun it’s been eating my way through this menu.

  And, an apology to the friendly folks in Burlington, Vermont, where the series is set. I so enjoy my visits both in person and in writing. However, you may be puzzled. I’ve taken liberties with the geography and inserted the scenic village of Half Moon Bay at your Northern edges. It is fictitious, and I hope you will welcome the locale and its food loving, sleuthing characters.

  CONTENTS

  PRAISE FOR Toasting Up Trouble

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  RECIPES

  EXCERPT FROM Roux the Day

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  “You know, it doesn’t count if you eat a truffle on a Friday. Calorie-wise, that is. Especially if it’s the first Friday of the month.”

  J.J. Tanner grinned at her friend and colleague, Skye Drake, then popped the chili dark chocolate truffle into her mouth. She closed her eyes as she chewed and finished it off with a long sigh. “What about eating two truffles?”

  “Don’t push it,” Skye answered, laughing. “So tell me, what do you think? Aren’t they to die for?”

  “Oh yeah. I’d go for it, Skye. I think we could work these into any event, and I like the idea that we’d be the exclusive distributor for the truffles. And maybe as part of this new venture, she’ll keep us in our own personal supply.”

  Skye slid out from behind her desk at Make It Happen, the event-planning business she owned, and struck a goddess pose. “You think this body needs any more calories?” She looked down at herself and smirked. “Not likely. You, on the other hand, my slender young nymph, are welcome to my share if this comes to pass.”

  “Young,” J.J. sniffed. “I do recall us being classmates at Champlain College, and it wasn’t yesterday, you know. Are you findin
g it more difficult to remember things these days?” She flashed a grin. “Anyway, happy to help, as always. So this means the corporate bash is wrapped up?”

  “As ready to go as it will be. Saturday night is my big event, and I’ll be very relieved when it’s over. It doesn’t matter how many years I’ve worked as an event planner—I always hold my breath until cleanup begins. How is your Italian princess party coming along?” Skye hefted a hip and sat on the edge of her desk and folded her arms across her chest. She wore her long blonde hair up in a chignon on days when she had meetings with clients. Today had been one of those days.

  J.J. sighed. “I’m excited about it. The Italian part of the theme is a done deal. After all, what else would it be when the sweet twenty-one-year-old-to-be is of Italian heritage? And I think the ‘princess’ is delighted with my suggestion of making it an Italian Designer Delight. Everyone invited is being asked to carry or wear in some manner an Italian designer item. Angelica Portovino wants to be a fashion designer herself, you know. She’s a very fashion-conscious gal, even though her purchases are far out of line with most twenty-one-year-olds I know. But with a wealthy Italian dad who’s made it big in technology, the sky’s the limit, so to speak.”

  “You’ve been waiting to use that one, haven’t you?”

  “Absolutely. Seriously, it will all come together once I have the replacement caterer and menu wrapped up.”

  “Who’s at the top of your list?”

  “Someone in my book club suggested Antonio Marcotti. She was at an event he catered last year, and she’s eaten at his restaurant several times since then. She says the guy’s a marvel with food. Italian, of course.”

  “Is he the one who owns the place on Lakeshore Drive?”

  “Yup. Bella Luna. I was pleased that he did agree to take on the job when I phoned him earlier this week. It’s such short notice, but when I’d filled him in on the theme, along with a couple of food requests from the client and the budget, he said it all sounded fine. Actually, I think the name of the client was the major selling point. We have a meeting on Monday afternoon to go over the menu.”

  “Sounds like a good fit. And talk about lucky. Think about it: if the original caterer had been even one week later in giving notice, you might have been up that proverbial creek without a paddle.”

  “Don’t I know it.” J.J. looked at the clock that hung above the credenza that doubled as a coffee station. She started to tidy her desk. “I really can’t believe Marcotti is able to fit this event in at such short notice. I take that as a good omen.”

  “And what about your own personal food dilemma?”

  “Ah, you mean the one where I have to come up with a cookbook and then choose an entrée from it, and, furthermore, actually prepare it for the Culinary Capers? My second hosting of the dinner club?”

  “That would be the one.”

  “I don’t have anything in mind yet, but I’m on it.”

  “I wouldn’t be a good friend if I didn’t point out that it’s been nearly a week since the last dinner-club evening. That’s right, isn’t it? One week on Sunday?” Skye peered over the red frames of her reading glasses.

  “Are you enjoying this inquisition?”

  Skye smiled. “Yes, I am. Thanks for asking.”

  “I have had other things on my mind—namely work, boss. But it won’t be a problem. Tomorrow morning we’re all meeting at Beth’s coffee shop, and I’ll announce the name of the cookbook, hence the need to hit the bookstore tonight. That’ll still give everyone two weeks to go out and buy the book, or borrow it, and come up with a dish to go along with the entrée I choose. I’m sort of leaning toward Italian.”

  “Hmm, wonder where that comes from?”

  “You’re right. I think I’m on a roll. I’m even dreaming in Italian these days. In fact, I may just ask Antonio Marcotti for a few suggestions. However, it still remains that the major problem with choosing the main course is the part about having to cook it myself.”

  “Oh, come on, now. You pulled off the last dinner you hosted, didn’t you? Everyone loved the whatchamacallit you made.”

  J.J. sighed. “You can’t go too wrong with chicken jambalaya. There was a reason I chose a Southern cookbook, you know. But I do think my period of grace is coming to an end. I’ve been a member of Culinary Capers for six months now. I really need to come up with something a bit more complicated, or I could lose my spot. And I’m trying. How does this sound—al dente or al forno, sautéed or seared? Don’t I sound like I know what I’m talking about?”

  Skye gave her a thumbs-up.

  J.J. sat back and laughed. “Wow, who’d have thought I’d actually be contemplating making an elaborate meal?”

  “Could have knocked me over with a feather when you said you were joining the dinner club,” Skye answered with mock sincerity.

  J.J. threw the small stuffed beaver, the revered mascot from their college days that sat on her desk for just such moments, at Skye. “Thanks for the support.”

  “You’re welcome, and remember who you bring the leftovers to.” Skye waited a beat before continuing. “By the way, since the princess party is still two weeks away, are you able to meet with a new client tomorrow?”

  J.J. paused in the middle of corralling her hair in a ponytail. She knew it was seriously time for a haircut but, wouldn’t you know it, the week she’d planned it, her hair had fallen just right, in soft curls well below her shoulders. And even the bangs had behaved. Now, if only it could be that agreeable the rest of the month. She picked a long dark brown hair off her white cashmere top. “Business is really picking up these days. That’s two new clients this week, right? Which one is mine?”

  Skye walked back around her desk and scrolled down her computer screen before answering. “Her name is Olivia Barker and she’s the communications person for Kirking Manufacturing. They’re planning, to quote her, “a very special retirement party” in I think she said five months.”

  “I love a client with a long timeline. It sounds like fun. Who’s on your list? And I hope it’s a long way off also. I know you have that fund-raiser coming up next month.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  “Still having problems with the chairperson?”

  “She is a diva in her own mind. Very much the reason I prefer dealing with the male gender.”

  “So that’s why I get Ms. Barker,” J.J. shot back, smiling all the while.

  Skye shrugged. “You might get lucky. She may be a gem.”

  “Perhaps. Or I may need to do a little polishing along with the planning. Is there anything I can help you with?”

  The phone rang before Skye had a chance to reply. She shook her head in answer while picking up the receiver. J.J. watched her old friend and, more recently, her boss as she wound a thick strand of blonde hair that had escaped its bonds around her finger. She’s tired. It had been a long week, what with the current client list and the new ones being added, as well as trying to come up with ideas that would revamp their website. They weren’t yet at the stage where they had too many clients.

  J.J. could help with the former but not the latter, although she loved tossing out ideas. That’s the part she loved the most about being an event planner—not the final product, but the process of creating it. She smiled as she checked her e-mail for a final time that day. She was lucky to have landed on her feet, in such good company and in such a beautiful place. Half Moon Bay in Burlington, Vermont, skirting Lake Champlain. She truly was one lucky gal.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Let’s see . . . Canadian, French, Greek. Here we go, Italian,” J.J. said softly to herself as she walked along the cookbook aisle at Book Titles, the newly renovated independent bookstore on her route home after work. She needed that cookbook tonight.

  She scanned the titles and authors and pulled out the ones that looked of interest to flip through. She l
iked looking at the pictures. That was her downfall. While she loved the whole idea of cooking elaborate meals, her forte was in the reading of cookbooks. She had an entire four shelves reserved for those books, part of a large bookcase that ran the length of one wall in her apartment. But only cookbooks with large and colorful photos of the dishes. She’d buy them according to the themes and photos, then look through them over and over, enjoying a vicarious thrill seeing someone else’s labor right there in bright colors.

  And although her friend Evan Thornton had persuaded her to join the Culinary Capers dinner club, she secretly believed she would never have caved if it hadn’t been for this one weakness. The one obsession that cost her money but was not a vice. Cookbooks. Okay, she admitted to herself, buying mysteries was another passion that fell into the same category. But now she could really indulge in cookbooks without a twinge of guilt.

  She grinned as she started flipping through the pages of nigellissima by Nigella Lawson. Great photos, easy-to-read recipes—although she had no idea how complicated they might be—and, best of all, Italian food. She quickly scanned the rest of the cookbook section and then made her way to the checkout clutching her prize. It would be an Italian night at casa Tanner.

  She drove home quickly, unlocked the door to her apartment, and slid through before Indie, her two-year-old Bengal cat, could dash out into the hallway. That had happened on more than one occasion,resulting in a test of wills: one demanding to be outside and on the prowl; the other insisting that Indie was an indoor cat. She’d compromised by setting up a portion of her large wraparound balcony as a cat playground complete with a large patch of real grass. Of course, the mesh blocking the sides and top were what gave J.J. peace of mind, while Indie didn’t seem to mind too much, except when trying to catch a bird midflight.

  She checked her phone messages—a reminder her car needed servicing, a hang-up, and the chance to win a fabulous vacation, all of which she deleted—and then dished out some canned food for Indie and tossed a green salad for herself.