FREE STUFF!

JENN McKINLAY: As you can see, we are giving away SEVEN books to one lucky reader! Click this link – GIVEAWAY – to enter to win the six books shown plus one mystery book! FREE BOOKS, ya’ll, does it get any better? No, it does not!

Now being a thrifty sort, I LOVE free stuff. When I was younger (read poorer), I took everything that was offered to me that had the right price of FREE. This is why I have an upright piano in my house that, once the Hooligans stopped taking lessons, no one has played except Hooligan 1’s Plus 1 when she visits and I adore her for that! Now that I am older and more discerning, I curate the freebies that I accept such as my in-laws gorgeous dining set from Copenhagen – yes, please, and thank you! Other stuff, not so much.

How about you, Reds, how do you feel about free stuff?

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: It’s like, gift with purchase. SO irresistible, even if we know i’;s not a gift!  Or the points we get at CVS. I know they make the stuff more expensive (my opinion at least) so it’s a wash for them, but oooh, free points so I can get free stuff.  Airline miles, too, so fabulous.  (I cannot bring myself to use them, though, and have no idea what I’m saving them FOR, which is annoying. ) And all those little bookish trinkets we get at conferences–I have so many canvas bags! And pens.  But..they were FREE! 

Anyway! We are so happy with all of you that we decided to have some summertime fun and offer YOU free stuff!  And we’re thinking we’ll do this again.That’s why you’ll see on the entry form that we’re calling it a quarterly giveaway.

LUCY BURDETTE:  Hank, I do not get those CVS points, do not understand how to use those at all. So I just throw the receipts in the trash. Airline points are tricky because it’s very seldom you can actually use them. I encourage John to use them when he’s going somewhere with multiple flights like skiing from Key West. One thing I do adore is free books! Particularly something I desperately want to read anyway. We hope you will feel that way about this giveaway! And by the way, come to the Reds and readers Facebook page and chat about Jenn’s Hallmark debut, Thursday, July 30! I can’t wait…

HANK: Lucy, you throw those receipts in the trash? Even if they say Extra Bucks? Nooooooo.. And yes, free books. The total scourge. How can anyone resist?

HALLIE EPHRON, who is still trying to give away an upright piano (no takers) that my kids learned to play on. No takers.

CVS coupon deals? Meh. Every time I go to CVS I try to use one of those deals (25% OFF ON YOUR NEXT PURCHASE!!) and it turns out whatever I’m shopping for doesn’t qualify. 

Having said that, I love it when the grocery store offers two avocados or mangos or cucumbers for the price of one. But two 5-pound bags of potatoes? They’ll sprout before go through them. Still, I take that “free” extra bag and drop it in the food donation bin on my way out of the store. 

RHYS BOWEN : The one I don’t get. But one pair of shoes get the second free. Who needs two pairs of identical shoes? In my early marriage/ raising a family days I loved  free stuff. Who  else collected Green Stamps? They paid for kids Christmas presents. These days I’m happy to pay. I do get and use airline miles. I’ve books trips to Europe for several family members on my miles. I currently have 249,0000 miles on AA. 

 

I don’t claim most freebies. I feel other people need free stuff more than me  But I do love a bargain!

JENN: I am also a flyer miles collector. Love upgrading my seat to one with legroom every chance I get!

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Ditto here on the CVS points. I am just annoyed by all the extra paper added to my receipt. Airline miles, on the other hand, have made trips to London and back much more comfortable over the years. I will take those upgrades, although they're not exactly "free" these days, even with mileage.

Otherwise, I'm not so big on free stuff these days. I'm trying to get rid of stuff, not add to it!

 

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I adore free stuff (well, except for the $15,000 cat.) I occasionally have dreams where I get to go through some sort of thrift shop and take anything I want. Seriously, I don't know what that says about me, but I do. My first time at the American Booksellers Conference in NY, I took EVERY advance reader copy I thought I might be remotely interested in - and then had to stagger back to my hotel from the Javits Center carrying approximately 500 pounds of books, sine there wasn't a cab to be had anywhere.

 

I have learned since then. Like the rest of you, I've gotten a lot more picky as the count-of-items-owned has increased but my storage space has not. It's still a delight, but it has to 1) actually be worth it (do I want to spend the money on the skin are to get the "free" gift-with-purchase) and something I need (buy-one-get-one-free is my trip-up here.) 

 

I'm still a sucker for free books, though... 

Your turn, Readers, where do you stand on free stuff?

A Delicious Deception is out today!

 Good morning Jungle Reds! This is me, Lucy, popping in to remind you that my Key West food critic mystery #16, A DELICIOUS DECEPTION is in bookstores today! You can order it here. 

It's been so interesting to read all kinds of reactions to this book--I take this as a compliment because it confirms that I didn’t play safe with extending the series. I'm dying to hear what you all think!

ABOUT THE BOOK: Mother-to-be Hayley Snow bites off more than she can chew in the sixteenth installment of Lucy Burdette’s USA Today bestselling Key West Food Critic mysteries.

When Sheriff’s Deputy Darcy Rogers asks Hayley for a small favor, she can’t say no. Nine months pregnant and temporarily benched from her food critic duties, Hayley’s itching for a distraction and eager to help. All she has to do is tag along while a young woman picks up her daughter from her father at Monroe County’s safe custody exchange location. Easy, right?

Wrong.

In the chaos of the Sheriff’s Office open house, the mother disappears. Then the father bolts, leaving Hayley with a terrified girl and the realization that something has gone terribly wrong. Hayley and Deputy Rogers head north up the Keys to search for answers. 

When a body turns up, Hayley realizes this isn’t just a missing-persons case—it’s a race against time. With the little girl’s safety at risk, Hayley must trust her instincts—and her heart—to uncover the truth.

Summer Eating by Lucy Burdette

 LUCY BURDETTE: as you know, summer is creeping up on us and it’s not only a great time for reading (see tomorrow’s post for our reading recommendations), but it’s also a great time for eating! (Although for me, when is a bad time for eating? Never!) Here are some recipes and dishes that I am looking forward to making or eating, or are those that I’ve made recently and loved, and then I would love to hear yours.

First up, a recipe for potato salad with olives from The New York Times cooking app. I made this last summer because I was making a dish for our long time supper club. This skirted all the allergy issues and it turned out so good that everybody wanted the leftovers. I will make it again this weekend.

Lemon lime lavender scones were baked in the upcoming A DELICIOUS DECEPTION by Hayley Snow‘s mother who is catering a wedding for a mother of the bridezilla. So I had to bake them as well and they are lovely. Link on mystery lovers kitchen.

You will want this recipe when tomato season comes along. Luckily in Key West, John grew tomatoes on our deck so we were able to sample this before the summer season. The two of us ate all but once slice and then fought over that the next day. I will definitely make this tomato galette again. LINK on Mystery Lovers Kitchen.

This recipe came from Smitten Kitchen Keepers. I’m a sucker for gnocchi and almost always order it if I see it on a menu. So I wanted to try this new recipe for ricotta gnocchi with a pistachio arugula sauce. It was outstanding! Link to my version here.

I am crazy for jalapeño poppers, but I didn’t see how I would ever make them because I don’t deep fry anything. Then one of my fellow Friends of the Key West library board members  showed up with a tray of these poppers for a benefactor event. They are not fried, they are baked, and they look reasonably easy. I will post that recipe as soon as I make them!

OK, Reds, your turn! What will you be cooking or eating this summer? You do not have to actually make it in your own kitchen for this to count.

What We’re Writing: Lucy’s Still in Paris

LUCY BURDETTE: I lost a week while we made our way north from Key West to Connecticut (not complaining after the winter New Englanders suffered), but gosh it’s chilly! Other writers manage to keep writing while on the road, but I’m not one of them. It took a few days to get reoriented to my draft and figure out what to tackle. So as of now, I’m back with Natalie (the protagonist of The Paris Recipe) in Paris. She’s temporarily staying on another Chef’s houseboat and trying to find her place in the fancy kitchen at Chez Cassan, as well as in her heart. It isn’t going well…

When Natalie woke early the next morning, the sky was only marginally lighter than black. All night she’d dreamed of the zucchini flowers and goat cheese. It felt like forever since she’d cooked anything, and she missed it so much. She loved that first spark of delight when she read a recipe that she thought would turn out so delicious that her stomach rumbled before she’d even set foot in the kitchen. She loved to read about food too, even though that was one step away from eating. She couldn’t imagine being a critic for her life’s work, prepared to take down a chef and his recipes as she went into the evening. What a waste, a tragedy almost, if you weren’t enjoying the food as you ate it, savoring each bite in the moment. Instead, everything had to be dissected, compared, contrasted, and possibly condemned. She could still recite a line she remembered from the movie Ratatouille, which she’d watched many times. The movie starred a rat who was a chef and managed to win over a food critic, who’d finally admitted: "But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so."

She could lie here for another hour and a half until the light expanded, ruminating about the fact that she’d heard Giselle come onboard the houseboat late last night. She’d heard them arguing again, followed by the enthusiastic noises of their lovemaking, which bothered her more than it should have. Natalie’s presence on this houseboat was not Didier’s choice, and Giselle had clearly been identified as his girlfriend. Why would she allow herself to think that her dinner with him was anything more than a small kindness to a lost soul who’d suffered a shock?  

    She could waste time waiting while the sun rose and then walk to the restaurant to begin her day, or she could go now and use their kitchen to try the recipe that she couldn't get out of her head. She had the cheese and the honey, and she knew there was a farmer's market that opened at 6:00 AM. She also knew that the exact chives she needed to tie up her little squash bundles were growing in the backyard of Chez Cassan. She glanced at her watch. If she hurried, she could prepare the dish, take some practice photos, and get everything cleaned up before anyone else arrived. The only evidence that would remain in the kitchen would be the slight scent of fried flowers. Hopefully no one would notice, and that lingering scent would soon be overtaken by the sauteing of onions and simmering of stocks.

I wish I could show you the real kitchen at Chez Cassan, but I've made it up this time. There won't be a bar with seating as in this photo, but there is a big stainless steel island. Are you a big fan of settings that are real places, or are you happy to go along wherever the writer takes you?

The Key West Cemetery by Barbara Ross

LUCY BURDETTE: I should be traveling home today and hopefully I am, but I asked my pal Barbara Ross if I could share her wonderful post about the Key West cemetery for your reading pleasure. You'll remember her as the author of the delightful Maine Clambake mystery series, but she also shares my love for Key West. Welcome back Barb!

BARBARA ROSS: The cemetery in Key West is a spot most tourists visit. It’s best known for its above-ground graves, like in New Orleans, and the light-hearted epitaphs of some its inhabitants, including the tombstones that say, “I told you I was sick,” “I’m just resting my eyes,” “If you’re reading this, you desperately need a hobby,” “I always wanted a little plot of land in Key West,” and “Devoted fan of singer Julio Iglesais.”

The cemetery was founded in 1847, after the previous burial grounds were washed away in a hurricane, though some of the graves, brought there from the earlier cemeteries, are older. Containing approximately 100,000 graves, more than three times the living population of Key West, the still-active cemetery is the only game in town, the final resting place for people of all religions, races, occupations and classes.

In addition to the regular walking tours, three times a year, the Historic Florida Keys Foundation offers a “Cemetery Stroll,” as a fundraiser. Living interpreters, often with a connection to the dead, tell the stories of some of the people buried there. Bill and I took one of those tours in March. There are so many interesting people buried in the cemetery, you can take these tours multiple times.

Here are just a few of the fascinating people whose stories we heard on our tour..

Sandy Cornish



Sandy Cornish was born a slave in 1793. In 1839, he was able to buy his freedom for $3000. His emancipation papers were burned in a fire that swept through the wooden buildings of the city of Port Leon in the Florida panhandle where he lived and worked. Unable to prove his status as a free man, when slave traders tried to take him to the market in New Orleans, he gathered a crowd in a square in Port Leon and publicly maimed himself, cutting his Achilles tendon, stabbing himself in the hip with a knife, and cutting off a finger. Worthless as a slave, he and his wife Lillah, whose freedom they had also purchased, moved to Key West. They founded a farm and orchard on the land where our rented house now stands and prospered, becoming one of the wealthiest couples in the city. Sandy Cornish founded the Cornish Chapel of the AME Methodist Church. The church houses a thriving congregation today.

The exact location of Sandy Cornish’s grave in the Key West Cemetery has been lost to history, so a memorial was recently erected. The story of Cornish’s life was told by well-known local singer Wilhelmina Lopez-Martin, who sang the intro and the outro.

William Curry



William Curry arrived in Key West penniless from Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas in 1837. He died as Florida’s first millionaire. He had many enterprises, but made the bulk of his fortune wrecking, salvaging goods from ships that wrecked in the treacherous waters of the Keys. This is how many early Key West fortunes were made. You can tour and even stay in The Curry Mansion, which is a Bed and Breakfast today.

On the Cemetery Stroll, William Curry’s story was told by Clinton Curry, a distant relative who still lives in Key West.

The Watlington Family Plot



Captain Francis Watlington and his wife Emeline raised their nine daughters in the house that is now the Oldest House Museum in Key West. Though Key West stayed with the Union in the Civil War, Captain Watlington joined the Confederate Navy. After the war, he lived principally in New York City, though he returned to Key West in his final years to be nursed by his youngest daughter, Lily, who had similarly cared for her mother and two of her sisters. She died in 1936. Earl Johnson was the last descendant to live in the house until his death in 1972, meaning the house was continuously lived in by one family for around a hundred and forty years.

The Watlington family’s story was told by Karl Reutling, a docent and historian at the Oldest House.

The Adderlys



George and Olivia Adderly immigrated separately from the Bahamas in 1890 and married soon after. They purchased land on Vaca Key which is now part of the City of Marathon. They built their home out of tabby, a kind of concrete made by burning shells to extract the lime. Incredibly the home still stands today, despite hurricanes and the punishing tropical climate, and you can tour it. The Adderlys attracted a Bahamanian community around them that thrived on sponge-fishing. When Henry Flagler built his railroad to Key West and needed a right of way over the Adderly land, George Adderly, a literate, but otherwise unadvantaged black man, went toe-to-toe with the richest and most powerful man in Florida, and demanded a station stop at Vaca Key in return. Flagler acquiesced. The stop meant the men of the little settlement could more easily move their sponges to market in Key West, while the women made money selling garden produce and baked goods to rail workers and travelers at the stop.

The Adderly’s stories were told by Key West City Commissioner Clayton Lopez and Phyllis LeConte.

Rosa and Mary Navarro



One of the most photographed graves in the Key West Cemetery are the mother and child angels at the graves of Mary and Rosa Navarro, which have recently been beautifully restored. The inscription on Mary Navarro’s statue says, “To the sacred memory of a brokenhearted mother.” The Navarros made their money in cigar-making and at the turn of the twentieth century, their interests took them to Manhattan. Rosa Navarro died in a fall from their apartment window when she was nine. Though her mother lived four years longer, she never recovered, following her daughter in death in 1907.

The Navarro’s story was told by Ron Wampler, and Diane Silvia, Executive Director of the Historic Florida Keys Foundation which is responsible for the restoration.

The stories in the Key West Cemetery, of fortunes made and lost in wrecking, farming, sponging, and cigar-making, of lives of triumph and tragedy, are the stories of the history of Key West. Even the tongue-in-cheek inscriptions I quoted at the top are a part of the irreverent atmosphere of the island. I’ve included just a few of the fascinating lives we learned about on the tour.

Readers: Do you ever walk in or visit cemeteries? What have you seen and learned?

[All photos in this post are by Bill Carito. If you like them and want to see more, you can friend him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/bcarito and follow him on Instagram at billcarito and bill.carito.colorphotos.]

At the Table in Paris: What Lucy's Writing

 

LUCY BURDETTE: I haven’t been in Key West over the past couple of months—at least not in my mind. Instead, I’ve been determined to write a real draft of my Paris novel before I need to get started on Key West #17. Writing this book has been on my wish list for several years, and I’ve had to make multiple trips to Paris (for research, of course.) You might remember that this is women’s fiction, about the journey of a young woman finding herself while looking for her biological father, a famous French chef. I’m closing in on 30,000 words and it’s been quite an adventure! The main character has changed, the point of view has changed, the opening scene has changed. I’m sure other things will change too, but I’m enjoying the journey, even though it’s hard. With a mystery, another murder always sparks up a sagging middle. With women’s fiction, it has to be all about the character’s odyssey. Here I give you the opening paragraphs, while warning you not to get too attached to these exact words…

Chapter One: The Paris Recipe

Natalie

Outside the arrivals hall at Charles de Gaulle airport, Natalie showed the Café de Floré’s address to the taxi driver who took her duffle. He grunted as swung the bag into his trunk, and they careened away from the curb, speeding along the superhighways that led to the city. Natalie gasped when she spotted the outline of the lacey wrought iron Eiffel Tower in the distance. The distinctive metal structure towered over the city, much taller than the other buildings that surrounded it like a sea of hungry chicks around a mother hen.

“C’est belle, oui?” the driver asked, smiling in the rearview mirror for the first time.

“Mais oui,” she whispered. “She’s gorgeous.” 

The taxi drove from the ring road that encircled the city—the périphérique exterieur, as her iphone told her—and dove through a series of narrow streets, into the harsh cacophony of the city. As they drew closer, she scraped her dark hair into a messy bun and patted a bit of glossy color on her cheeks and her lips. Even after staggering off a red eye, this city made her want to try a little harder.

The cabbie lurched to a stop in front of a large café across the street from a church. “Voilà,” he said, after dragging her duffle bag from the trunk and accepting the five euro tip she offered. “Bonne chance,” he called as he drove away.

During their one very short conversation, Aurelie, the kitchen-manager-plus-who-knows-what-else, had instructed Natalie to take a cab to Chez Cassan at noon. There she’d give her a quick tour of the restaurant along with the key for the place where she’d be staying. At least that’s what Natalie thought she’d said, as it had transpired in rapid French which was totally different than repeating words and phrases into her phone in the Duolingo app.

“C’est tout provisoire,” Aurelie had added, meaning it’s all temporary. Underneath that, probably meaning: We’ll see. I have my doubts. Maybe even, I did not want to hire you.

Natalie had shaken that off. No stiff, unfriendly French woman was going to ruin her dream before it even got started. The Real Natalie in Paris. Ha! Working in what was surely one of the top twenty restaurants in the city. Ha! Or had been anyway, until Chef Cassan’s ship had lost its rudder. Oof!

What’s the best non-mystery novel you’ve read lately, and what did you like most about the story?

Meanwhile, the final edits have been finished on A DELICIOUS DECEPTION (coming July 14,) as well as the paperback version of THE MANGO MURDERS (July 7.) Pre-orders are always appreciated!

Read This, Not That: Travel Edition by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: This is a Traveling with Books question. John and I are going on a big trip in March involving a very long plane flight, long layovers, etc. I used to travel with a stack of books because I absolutely have to have something to read while I’m on the road. Plus obviously, vacation offers more time to read, depending on the type of vacation you’ve chosen. (This vacation will involve a lot of trudging, so we’ll see how much reading gets done.)

In the past, if I was going somewhere for a week-ish, I would pack 6 to 8 books so I wouldn’t run out. John was always horrified at the extra weight. Then e-books became popular, we acquired a Kindle, and I was persuaded to leave the hardcopies behind. Imagine my horror and despair when the brand new Kindle malfunctioned early in the trip so a quarter of each screen was absolutely unreadable. Even though we were in Hungary, we managed to find one bookstore that carried some English language books, but nothing I was dying to read. So I borrowed books from the other travelers on the trip as they finished what they’d brought--dependent on their book choices and reading speed. It was a nightmare! 

Now I try to combine the techniques – pick out a couple of paperbacks that are thick and and not too serious and utterly appealing so as to distract from the worst aspects of traveling, and hope the Kindle app on my iPad continues to function as well.

Questions of the day: Can you recommend a paperback book or two that meet my travel criteria: thick and compelling? (The photo is of some of the books I own that could possibly make the travel team. Do any of those strike your fancy?) How do you handle traveling and reading?

How to Write and Produce a Murder Mystery Tea by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: you may remember last year that the friends of the Key West library hosted a murder mystery tea event featuring Ann Cleeves and the script she wrote to share with libraries across the world. Though we didn’t know exactly what we were doing, it was a huge success, and we were determined to repeat it.

I *might* have volunteered to write the script this year… Here are some tips and tricks in case you want to pull a stunt like this yourself!

Secure an author. Ahem. Easier said than done. Already worrying about next year...

Decide on a theme and a murder. This was easy. I live in Key West, I write mysteries set in Key West. Key lime pie is a thing. A poisoned key lime pie was the next logical step. I happen to know that our head librarian has ordered a nursing dummy to set up the crime scene. There will be a blonde wig involved, along with a key lime pie. (The staff at the Key West Library is amazing!)

Choose motives for four suspects. This is hard, but critical. Money? Love? Greed? Lust? Loathing? Ambition? They aren't going to tell...

Write the play. Ahem. See above, easier said than done.

Share the theme with the library staff so they can set up the crime scene, including any physical clues. (If you haven’t been completely successful writing the dialogue so that the audience has a fair shot at guessing the murderer, these clues can relieve the pressure.)

Suggest costumes to actors and hold rehearsal. Tell everyone it’s going to be great and don’t be afraid to ham it up! Write a snappy description and invite the world.

Recruit an amazing team to produce the tea with a tropical twist this time...

Now we have 175 guests registered, with more on the waiting list. Wish us luck! And by the way, if I posted the script on my website, can you imagine libraries actually using it? What else would you need to make this happen at your library?

Mining Trivia Night for Story Gold by Lucy Burdette

 LUCY BURDETTE: Happy New Year Reds! May it be a great year full of good friends, good health, good food, good books...

Holidays aside, it's been a busy time! I received the copy edits for A DELICIOUS DECEPTION in December, so they took first priority once they landed. This time I learned that I insert "that" into many more sentences than need it. I will try to remember that lesson in the future! Meanwhile I finished two projects, a Key Lime murder mystery for the Friends of the Key West Library, and a short story for the upcoming anthology Key West Noir (which will be part of the Akashic Noir series.)  I find short stories so challenging! The writer has a short time (duh) do everything normally done in a long book—develop characters, present a perfect jewel of a plot, and produce a satisfying conclusion. Plus, the story had to be noir, as in dark. (I tried!)

We had to tell the editors ahead of time what part of Key West we were featuring, so the stories wouldn't overlap too much. I chose Mallory Square and the new Key West cooking school. I wrote it from Nathan Bransford’s point of view in the third person. He's Hayley’s husband and he often gets overshadowed by her and the other characters, especially Miss Gloria. To get the proper background, I convinced six friends to go with me to the Cooking School’s Monday trivia night. We did not win any prizes, but it was tons of fun, and I got good photos and took lots of notes. I’ll show you a few of those and then post a snippet of the story, now called A NOT SO TRIVIAL MURDER. 

they were good sports

isn't it gorgeous?

waiting for snacks, or inspiration?

the tally

Mallory Square, home of the nightly sunset over the Gulf celebration with its patchwork of street performers and purveyors of food and drink, was mostly dark and silent. Across the expanse of stone dotted with palms, he saw a brightly colored umbrella, lit up by the glow of a soft yellow lamp on a card table covered with a deep blue cloth. Lorenzo, a friend of his wife’s, was bent over a spread of tarot cards, explaining something to the client in front of him. Bransford headed in that direction, flashing his Maglite along the walls of the buildings lining the square, greeting a couple of the regular homeless types. Though this square wasn’t a hotbed of crime after sundown, the chief believed that a regular and reasonably friendly police presence functioned as a retaining wall between order and chaos. 

The woman sitting with Lorenzo leaned across his table to squeeze his hands and then got up to leave. Bransford figured he would check in. Though he wasn’t certain the fortune teller had access to a deeper understanding of the universe than most, he was an acute observer of human behavior. If trouble was brewing, Lorenzo would know. He approached the table and waved hello. “You’re working late.”

“I don’t like to rush my clients,” Lorenzo said earnestly. “They come in psychic pain and it’s my job to honor that.” 

Bransford hardly knew what to say, but in some happy twist of fate, his radio crackled before he had to answer. The police department dispatcher, usually unflappable, reported a problem at the Key West cooking school in a breathless voice. “EMTs have been dispatched to the scene. You’d better check in. The bartender was hysterical, so not clear whether someone is dead or dead drunk.” 

Sometimes in this town, it was hard to tell the difference. “I’m on it,” said Bransford. “Have a good night,” he told the tarot card reader and jogged off toward the redbrick building at the far end of the square.

He paused at the entrance to the school, which was located up the only escalator in Old Town on the second floor of the US Coast Guard building, now called the Shops at Mallory Square. The developers had spent a bloody fortune renovating the cooking school space, which he had not yet visited. Despite his own wife’s connection to food and the food world, he was an eat to live guy, not live to eat. Other than investigating a possible crime on the premises, he was not the kind of man who would attend a cooking school or even a single demonstration. Hard pass.

We’ll see how well I did with this—the anthology will be comprised of talented Key West and Key West adjacent writers (including SA Cosby, king of noir!) Of course I had that in my mind the whole time I was writing, which may or may not have helped. By the way, here's a photo of the winners, which became an important plot point.

Reds, do you read and enjoy short stories? Why or why not? How about trivia, want to join a team?

The Sound of Music by Lucy Burdette

 LUCY BURDETTE: I hadn't paid much attention to the news that THE SOUND OF MUSIC is celebrating its 60th anniversary until my neighbor mentioned she was going to our local theater to see it on the big screen. I'm not lukewarm about this musical--I adore it! So I immediately signed on to the neighbor posse. We got there a half hour ahead in case the place was mobbed (it wasn't) and settled in with popcorn.

https://youtu.be/q0y-CuV1SI4

I love this show so deeply! It was the perfect antidote for the bad news the world keeps throwing at us. I love the way the romance develops--such a great example of show don't tell. The Captain's patriotism is inspiring, the escape is epic, I love those nuns from beginning to end, the depiction of stepfamily dynamics...well, not so realistic:). I do have some lingering questions, such as why oh why did they give Julie Andrews that horrendous haircut? And what is Maria referring to when she sings she might have had a wicked childhood?? Her family of origin is never mentioned--what shaped her into the spunky woman she grows into during the movie? Would the baroness really have bowed out so neatly once Maria returns to the von Trapp household? She strikes me as more of a fighter than that...

I must have seen this not long after it came out in 1965, but I was also cast in our high school rendition as Brigitta. (That probably accounts for a bit of my adoration...)

Here's my pal Joel Silidker (RIP) playing the Captain...

Are you a fan of the show? Have you seen it recently? Is there a different movie you feel even more strongly about?

ps On a different subject, if you might want to listen to the audio version of my first advice column mystery, it's on sale for $7.50 until November 1. 

https://www.audiobooks.com/promotions/promotedBook/809297/deadly-advice?refId=221829

Making ours MURDER with Lucy Burdette, Sarah Stewart Taylor, and Elise Hart Kipness

HALLIE EPHRON: A few months ago, I heard that three authors whose work I adore (our own Lucy Burdette, Sarah Stewart Taylor, and Elise Hart Kipness), all have new books coming out. (Sarah: Hunter's Heart Lodge; Elise: Close Call; and Lucy: The Mango Murders). 

Wouldn't it be great, I thought, to bring them to my very own Milton Library.

So I proposed an author panel (I'd get to moderate!) to the president of the Friends of the Milton Library and to the wonderful librarians, and got an enthusiastic thumbs-up! 

Lucy made up the description of the event with the enticing title, MAKE MINE MURDER and invited patrons to come for a "look behind the scenes of bestselling whodunits, edge-of-your-seat thrillers, and literary mysteries to discover how these authors craft suspense, plot their twists, and bring their unforgettable characters to life."

It worked! We had a full house. The wonderful library Friends supplied drinks and cake and cookies, not to mention lined up the chairs. The pre-event publicity was spectacular. And we couldn't have had more fun.

By the way, we have a brand new local independent bookstore (Next Chapter Books & More in Quincy, MA) that sold a very nice amount of books.

Irresistible, right? I am so pleased to be able to share with you a video of the event... credit to videographer Alyssa Flori.

When you're finished, please share any questions that popped into your head while you were watching and we'll do our best to answer.

Games We Play

LUCY BURDETTE: We had our grandkids visiting for plus minus a week in July. Most of the time they are way too busy to sit at a table and play a game. (They are nine, seven, and three, and love swimming, boating, jungle gyms, anything active.) But one morning Miss Thea and I needed something to do, so I rustled through the stack of the games we kept from when our kids were small. I wanted to play Parcheesi, but when I opened the box, the board was there, but not a single playing piece. 

So we grabbed the next one down, Life. We had pieces and money and the board, but no instructions. I was able to Google it and get a loose idea of how to play. It was quite interesting to explain to Thea about the different jobs and how much you might earn and how much you could then afford for buying a house. She traded away the opportunity to be an artist for police officer. (Ha! I don’t think they make enough money to buy the mansion that she is yearning for.) She also really wanted this log cabin and desperately wanted to get rid of the split level.

I remember playing multiplayer games of Pounce when we would have beach weeks with our relatives. (That’s solitaire with the lead cards put out in the middle so that everybody could play onto them hence the name pounce.) Lots of slapping of cards and yelling. It’s a very good memory!

Do you still have games from your childhood or your children’s childhood? What are your memories of the favorite games you used to play?

Mango Upside Down Cake by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: We were going to have another of my favorite writers today, Barbara O'Neal with her newest book, The Last Letter of Rachel Ellsworth, which I have on my nightstand. (Am salivating to think of diving in.) Except...her next book is due in two weeks, so she begged to postpone. I say, never get in the way of a writer and her unfinished manuscript! So we are serving mango upside down cake today instead!

In the fifteenth food critic mystery, THE MANGO MURDERS, it’s May, and that means mango season has arrived in Key West. That means I had to develop lots of mango-themed recipes. This mango upside down cake is a riff on the traditional pineapple and just as delicious. 

Mangoes have a weird pit hidden in the middle of the fruit that you must cut around, so your yield may be smaller than expected. I made this cake with one mango but I could happily have used two.

Ingredients



1-2 mangoes


8-9 Maraschino cherries


12 Tbsp butter, divided


1/2 cup brown sugar


2 Tbsp honey


1 and 1/2 cup unbleached flour


1 and 1/2 tsp. baking powder


1/2 cup sugar


1 tsp. vanilla


2 large eggs


1/2 cup milk



Preheat the oven to 350. Butter a 9 inch cake pan, bottom and sides. (I used some of the butter above, figuring there's plenty in the recipe already.) Cut a piece of parchment paper to the size of the pan, put it in the bottom and butter that too. 

Peel and cut the mangoes into slices or cubes.

Melt 4 oz of butter in a small pan. Add the honey and brown sugar and heat, stirring until smooth. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and then place the fruit into the pan, in whatever design you choose. Dot with maraschino cherries.

Meanwhile, combine dry ingredients except for the sugar in one bowl and measure milk into a glass measuring cup. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar and vanilla with a mixer until they are light in color. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each. On low speed, add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk until everything is mixed nicely. 



Pour the batter over the fruit and bake for about 38-40 minutes until lightly browned or until a test knife comes out clean. Let the cake rest on a rack for an hour. Then run a knife around the edge, place your serving plate over the top, and gently invert the cake onto the platter. Tap the pan to help it along if it doesn’t drop out immediately. 

Serve warm or at room temperature. You're welcome. Love, Lucy