Crafts and Life

For Talia Marby, the sweet smell of success is a lot like the pungent aroma of fried fish and vinegar. Her new business, Fry Me a Sliver, is rapidly expanding beyond fish and chips to become one of the best eateries in the Berkshires. But the nasty owner of a neighboring boutique is making a stink, baiting Talia in a very public fight at a community center fundraiser and nursing an inexplicable grudge.
 
When the boutique owner is found strangled with Talia’s scarf knotted around her neck, our favorite fish fryer finds herself in hot oil. Needing to clear her name, and fast, Talia’s investigation soon yields some shocking surprises as well as a sizzling suspicion: someone had good reason to want the victim dead—and it’s frying Talia’s nerves…

Linda Reilly has written another heartwarming and yet complex Cozy Mystery!

Talia Marby has bought her bungalow and has taken the lease over on the Fish and Chip shop, she has two employees a rather klutzy but keen 19 year old skateboarder (Lucas) and a somewhat grouchy more mature lady (Martha), when a new shop opens across the way Talia goes to welcome the new people only to get snubbed well and truly by the leaseholder! A few days later Talia and Martha are at the Christmas Fair, where they will be serving deep fried sweet treats, only to discover that Ria, the aforementioned leaseholder is at the next stall to them and she is NOT happy about the placing. Things become slightly heated when Ria accuses Talia and Martha of stealing from her stall, and Ria refuses to sell a second hand scarf to Talia (well she would but she was charging $400 for it! and this was a scarf that Talia had knitted for her late Nan), then Talia finds out that Ria is actually someone she knows, and this someone had stolen her best friends rabbit when they were children (which accounts for why Ria had gone white when Talia had said that she and Martha are not thieves!)

Things might have settled down, only at the end of the day Talia discovers Ria dead, and strangled with her Nan's scarf! Now Talia is suspect #1 in the Police's eyes, but she has found that Ria had upset quite a few people, so whilst Talia doesn't plan to discover whodunnit, she does plan on clearing her name!