Bowled Over
Authors: Victoria Hamilton
Tags: #General, #Women Sleuths, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction
PRAISE FOR
A Deadly Grind
“Has all the right ingredients: small-town setting, kitchen antiques, vintage cookery, and a bowlful of mystery. A perfect recipe for a cozy.”
—Susan Wittig Albert, national bestselling author of
Widow’s Tears
“Victoria Hamilton’s charming new series is a delightful find.”
—Sheila Connolly, national bestselling author
“Hamilton’s Jaymie Leighton completely captivated me…I’ll be awaiting [her] return…in the next Vintage Kitchen Mystery.”
—
Lesa’s Book Critiques
“A great new series for cozy fans.”
—
Debbie’s Book Bag
“Smartly written and successfully plotted, the debut of this new cozy series…exudes authenticity.”
—
Library Journal
“Fans of vintage kitchenware and those who fondly remember grandma or mother’s Pyrex dishes will find a lot to enjoy in this mystery…There are several good suspects for the murderer, cleverly hinted at early on, and searching for the identity of the murder victim adds to the well-plotted investigation.”
—The Mystery Reader
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Victoria Hamilton
A DEADLY GRIND
BOWLED OVER
B
OWLED
O
VER
VICTORIA HAMILTON
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
USA / Canada / UK / Ireland / Australia / New Zealand / India / South Africa / China
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
For more information about the Penguin Group, visit penguin.com.
BOWLED OVER
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2013 by Donna Lea Simpson.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.
BERKLEY
®
PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME
logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61948-3
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / March 2013
Cover illustration by Robert Crawford.
Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
Interior text design by Tiffany Estreicher.
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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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.
| ALWAYS LEARNING | PEARSON |
Sorrow intrudes on every life, but grief shared transforms into a melancholy bond that needs no words to express. 2012 had its share of sorrow, as well as joy. The release of
A Deadly Grind,
Book 1 of the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, on May 1st was wonderful, but tinged with sadness that one woman who would have loved seeing it so much, Agnes Margaret Simpson, had been lost to our family on January 26th.
Through the grief I clung to my sister, Mickey Simpson (Mick, to me), and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to explain how that helped and still does. I can say, at any time of day, “I miss her so much,” and Mick will say, “I do, too.”
But beyond that, Mick is also the reason I am a writer today; she believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself, encouraged me along the path, and gave me the daring to achieve my lifelong goal. She is a wonderfully imaginative and professional writer; I hope I can do for her what she did for me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are so many people to thank when any work of fiction comes to fruition. Writing a book is a whirlwind, for the author, and then comes a long, quiet period of fear: that you didn’t fulfill your original vision, that the editor will hate it, that when it finally comes out—sometimes a year or more after you turn in your final copy—readers will be disappointed. If you care, you worry.
But no writer works alone, and that is the blessing of being published by an extraordinary company like The Berkley Publishing Group. There are a host of consummate professionals between the author and the reader, and they never let me down.
I have to start with the wonderful Michelle Vega, who gave me a chance and encouragement, and keeps me consistent and from repeating myself. I also want to thank copyeditor Andy Ball, who makes me laugh with clever comments in the margin, and helps me look smarter than I am with much-needed infusions of grammar improvement! There are others too whose names I don’t know, but who work hard on the book, making it look and read as near to perfect as I’ll ever get.
And at the heart of it is my agent, the one, the only Jessica Faust, my literary soul mate, my sounding board and constant cheering section, as well as the smartest and most professional agent in the business.
Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.
Jaymie’s Fourth of July Potato Salad
One
R
ENT ME
,
THE
sign, written in funky, colored text, read. Jaymie Leighton propped it up on the glass countertop and wedged it against the basket with a red plaid Thermos bottle. She fussed with the picnic display some more, then stepped back and eyed her arrangement: vintage melamine dishes in a red gingham pattern stacked in an antique wicker picnic basket, a stars-and-stripes flag draped over it all and gorgeous cherry-print linens piled to one side. It made an attractive display.
Jaymie glanced over at her fellow Queensville townie, Mrs. Trelawney Bellwood, and watched her examining the stacks of melamine dishes on the nearby shelf. The woman would no doubt have some comment; just give her a few minutes.