Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (27 page)
Read Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) Online
Authors: Joanne Pence
Here’s a brief outline of each book in the order written:
For sassy and single food writer Angie Amalfi, life’s a
banquet—until the man who’s been contributing unusual recipes for her food
column is found dead. But Angie is hardly one to simper in fear—so instead she
simmers over the delectable homicide detective assigned to the case.
In TOO MANY COOKS, Angie’s talked her way into a job on a
pompous, third-rate chef’s radio call-in show. But when a successful and much
envied restaurateur is poisoned, Angie finds the case far more interesting than
trying to make her pretentious boss sound good.
Angie
Amalfi’s
latest job,
developing the menu for a new inn, sounds enticing—especially since it means
spending a week in scenic Northern California with her homicide-detective
boyfriend. But once she arrives at the soon-to-be-opened Hill Haven Inn, she’s
not so sure anymore. The added ingredients of an ominous treat, a missing
person, and a woman making eyes at her man leave Angie convinced that the only
recipe in this inn’s kitchen is one for disaster.
Food columnist Angie Amalfi has it all. But while she’s
wondering if it’s time to cut the wedding cake with her boyfriend, Paavo, he
becomes obsessed with a grisly homicide that has claimed two female victims.
Angie becomes the next target of a vendetta that stretches from the dining
rooms of San Francisco’s elite to the seedy Tenderloin.
Angie has decided to make her culinary name by creating the
perfect chocolate confection:
angelinas
.
Donating her delicious rejects to a local mission, Angie soon finds that the
mission harbors more than the needy, and to save not only her life, but Paavo’s
as well, she’s going to have to discover the truth faster than you can beat egg
whites to a peak.
Angie
Amalfi’s
long-awaited
vacation with her detective boyfriend has all the ingredients of a romantic
getaway—a sail to Acapulco aboard a freighter, no crowds, no Homicide Department
worries, and a red bikini. But it isn’t long before Angie’s
Love Boat
fantasies
are headed for stormy seas—the cook tries to jump off the ship, Paavo is acting
mighty strange, and someone’s added murder to the menu…
Angie Amalfi has a way with food and people, but her newest
business idea is turning out to be shakier than a fruit-filled gelatin mold.
Now, her first—and only—clients for “Fantasy Dinners” are none other than a
group of UFO chasers and government conspiracy fanatics. But when it seems that
the group has a hidden agenda greater than anything on the
X-Files
,
Angie’s determined to find out the truth before it takes her out of this
world…for good.
Between her latest “sure-fire” foray into the food
industry—video restaurant reviews—and her concern over Paavo’s depressed state,
Angie’s plate is full to overflowing. Paavo has never come to terms with the
fact that his mother abandoned him when he was four, leaving behind only a
mysterious present. But when the token disappears, Angie discovers a lethal
goulash of intrigue, betrayal, and mayhem that may spell disaster for her and
Paavo.
For once, Angie’s newest culinary venture, “Comical Cakes,”
seems to be a roaring success!
But there’s nothing funny
about her boyfriend Paavo’s latest case—a series of baffling murders that may
be rooted in satanic ritual.
And it gets harder to focus on pastry alone
when strange “accidents” and desecrations to her baked creations begin
occurring with frightening regularity—leaving Angie to wonder whether she may
end up as devil’s food of a different kind.
Angie
Amalfi’s
culinary adventures
always seem to fall flat, so now she’s decided to cook up something different:
love. But her earnest attempts at matchmaking don’t go so well—her friend
Connie is stood up by a no-show jock. Now Connie’s fallen for a tarnished
loner, and soon finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation. Angie’s
determined to find the real killer, but when the trail leads to the kitchen of
her favorite restaurant, she fears she’s about to discover a family recipe that
dishes out disaster…and murder!
Angie hates to leave the side of her hunky fiancé, Paavo,
but she gets an offer she can’t refuse. She’ll be preparing the banquet for her
favorite soap opera’s reunion special, on the estate where the show was
originally filmed! But when a corpse turns up in the mansion’s cellar, and
Angie starts snooping around to investigate a past on-set death, she discovers
that real-life events may be even more theatrical than the soap’s on-screen
drama.
Against her instincts, Angie agrees to let her control-freak
mother plan her engagement party—she’s just too busy to do it herself. And
Angie’s even more swamped when murder enters the picture. Now she must follow
the trail of a mysterious pregnant kitchen helper at a nearby Greek eatery—a
woman who her friendly neighbor Stan is infatuated with. And when Angie gets a
little too close to the action, it looks like her fiancé Paavo may end up
celebrating solo, after the untimely
d.o.a
. of his
hapless fiancé!
Angie and Paavo have had enough familial input regarding
their upcoming wedding to last a lifetime. So Angie leaps at the chance to
spend some time with her fiancé in a sun-drenched Arizona town. But when a
wealthy local is murdered, uncovering a hotbed of deadly town secrets, Angie’s
getaway with her lover is starting to look more and more like her final meal.
Just when dilettante chef Angie
Amalfi’s
checkered culinary career seems to be looking up, she has to drop everything
and hightail it to Rome. Her realtor sister is in a stew—accused of murder. To
make matters worse, a priceless religious relic is missing as well—so the
Amalfi girls are joining forces in the Eternal City…and
diving
head-first into a simmering cauldron of big trouble.
Plus a Christmas novella: “
The Thirteenth
Santa”
o0o
Look for the latest Angie Amalfi mysteries and other
books by Joanne Pence by visiting her website at
www.joannepence.com
.