Sunday, August 5, 2018

FEATURED AUTHOR: LUCY BURDETTE



ABOUT THE BOOK


When a killer strikes just before flan time, beloved food critic Hayley Snow is forced to sniff out the killer before someone else bites the dust.

Hayley Snow, fiery food critic for Key Zest magazine, has just landed a ticket to one of the most prestigious events in Key West: a high-brow three-day conference at the Harry Truman Little White House. Even though she’ll be working the event helping her mother’s fledgling catering business, there’s plenty of spicy gossip to go around. But just before her mother’s decadent flan is put to the test, Key West’s most prized possession, Hemingway’s Nobel prize gold medal for The Old Man and the Sea, is discovered stolen from its case.

Unsavory suspicions point to Gabriel, a family friend and one of the new busboys working the event, who mysteriously goes missing moments later. Anxious to clear his name, Gabriel’s family enlists Hayley to help find him, but right as they begin their search, his body is found stabbed to death in the storeroom.

Hayley has no shortage of suspects to interrogate and very little time before the killer adds another victim to the menu in national bestselling author Lucy Burdette’s delectable eighth Key West Food Critic mystery, Death on the Menu.


Book Details:


Title: Death on the Menu

Author: Lucy Burdette

Genre: Mystery

Series: Key West Food Critic Mysteries, book 8

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books (August 7, 2018)

Print length: 304 pages

On tour with: Great Escape Book Tours






LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH LUCY BURDETTE


A few of your favorite things:
My elderly Australian shepherd, Tonka, my elderly gray cat Yoda, my (not-so-elderly) husband John, my plum blossom yoga pants.
Things you need to throw out: I swear I will never buy clothes again just because they are on sale! If I haven’t worn them in a year, they need to go. 


Things you love about writing: Rewriting and editing, typing “the end,” seeing the finished copy of a book, seeing the book in a bookstore, hearing from readers who read it and loved it!
Things you hate about writing: Writing the first draft--getting the story figured out--is so hard!

Things you love about where you live: The palm trees, the blue/green water around the island, the wonderful food, the interesting people, the history.
Things that make you want to move: Hurricane season, global warming and sea level rise, crowds of drunken tourists . . . 


Things you never want to run out of: I’m addicted to the Backyard Food Company’s candied jalapenos. I buy them whenever I see them. And good books!
Things you wish you’d never bought: See clothes on sale, above!


Favorite foods: Homemade cake (especially yellow with mocha icing), blueberries and peaches in season, café con leche from the Cuban Coffee Queen, fried shrimp, crab cakes.
Things that make you want to throw up: Liver and any other organ meats.

Things you’d walk a mile for: Having coffee or a chocolate milk shake with my friends or family, bookstores.
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: Politicians who lie and put themselves first.

Things you always put in your books: Food, restaurants, the Key West police department, my character’s houseboat, her tarot-card-reading friend, Lorenzo, happy endings.

Things you never put in your books: Violence and gore on the page, sex, ditto.

Things to say to an author: I loved your book! Your story made me think . . . made me want to go to Key West . . . made me hungry . . . made me laugh and cry. When is the next one coming? I bought a copy for all my friends. Would you be willing to talk with my book group?

Things to say to an author if you want to be fictionally killed off in their next book: Can you give me a copy? When are you going to write a real book?

Favorite places you’ve been: Key West (of course), Paris, Australia, India, Connecticut shoreline, coast of Maine, New York City.

Places you never want to go to again: Any twelve lane highway full of frantic drivers!

Things that make you happy: Good food, animals, friends, good books, my family.

Things that drive you crazy: Woodchucks mowing down our beans and okra plants in the garden!




ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Clinical psychologist Lucy Burdette (aka Roberta Isleib) has published 16 mysteries, including the latest in the Key West food critic series, Death On The Menu (Crooked Lane Books, August 2018.) Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She's a member of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime. She blogs at Jungle Red Writers and shares her love for food with the culinary writers at Mystery Lovers Kitchen. She lives in Madison Connecticut and Key West Florida.


Connect with Lucy:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  | 
Goodreads  |  Instagram

Buy the book:
Amazon  |  Barnes & Noble  |  Crooked Lane Books