A Side Dish of Death - A Review & Giveaway

 Review

A SIDE DISH OF DEATH by T. C. LoTempio
The Urban Tails Pet Shop Mystery

 

Fox Hollow is abuzz about the murder mystery fundraiser to promote adopt-a-cat month and support the Fox Hollow Shelter. Celebrity chef Reynoldo Venery is overseeing the food preparation and not even a hurricane predicted for that night will stop people from coming to the sold out event. Shell McMillan, owner of the Urban Tails Pet Shop and former star of Spy Anyone, is ready to enjoy the evening with her homicide detective boyfriend, Josh, with her cats acting as ambassadors, despite the fact that Patrick, her cheating ex fiance is in town. But when the storm knocks the power out at the event Shell finds a dead body...a real dead body. Someone has killed the temperamental chef! Although Josh immediately takes charge, with her ex a prime suspect Shell and her former television partner Gary can't help but start their own investigation. With some shrewd deductions and feline help will they solve another murder?

 

I was thrilled to be back in Fox Hollow for one of my favorite series. I really love the characters of the Urban Tails Pet Shop Mysteries. Though former television stars, both Shell and Gary are down to earth people I would love to have as friends. They are smart and work well together. They also prove that men and women can just be friends without any romance! I like their significant others as well and hope that Shell and Josh will be able to share some non murderous time together. Of course, my favorite characters are the cats! While Kahlua and the visiting Serendipity are lovely, it's Purraday and Princess Fuzzypants who truly are the stars of the show. I also have a soft spot for Dahlia!

 

The mystery itself was confounding with multiple possible motives. Limiting the number of suspects in this closed circle mystery didn't make solving the murder any easier. I enjoyed how Shell used the resources at hand to get to the bottom of things.

 

With smart humans and even smarter cats A SIDE DISH OF DEATH is a fast paced closed circle mystery that promotes cat rescue. A volatile chef, a hurricane, and murder make this one fundraiser that won't soon be forgotten!

 

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A Side Dish of Death (Urban Tails Pet Shop Mysteries) by T. C. LoTempio

About A Side Dish of Death

A Side Dish of Death (Urban Tails Pet Shop Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery 5th in Series
Setting - Connecticut
Publisher: ‎ Beyond the Page Publishing (February 25, 2025)
Print length: ‎ 257 pages

When a celebrity chef is murdered, Shell McMillan has to cook up a plan to trap the killer of a man for all seasonings . . .

With adopt-a-cat month in full swing in Fox Hollow, pet shop owner Shell McMillan decides that hosting a night of murder mystery dinner theater will be a fun way to raise funds for the cause. But she didn’t realize that the celebrity chef she’d hired for the event would turn out to be a tyrannical snob, or that her scoundrel of an ex-fiancé would turn up with his own shady agenda. Still, the show must go on, and as the lighthearted plot on-stage unfolds, the scene off-stage turns decidedly darker when the chef is found murdered.

Rather than question an entire roomful of possible suspects, Shell determines that looking into the victim’s past will lead her to the culprit more quickly. What she finds is that the chef had left behind a disreputable past and a trail of disgruntled people, including a long string of women he’d wronged and a host of others who may have been out for revenge. But as Shell closes in on the killer, the killer is closing in on her. And she’s discovering that while too many cooks can spoil the broth, being a murderer’s next target can really ruin your appetite . . .

About Toni Lotempio

 

While Toni Lotempio does not commit – or solve – murders in real life, she has no trouble doing it on paper. Her lifelong love of mysteries began early on when she was introduced to her first Nancy Drew mystery at age 10 – The Secret in the Old Attic. She and her cat pen the Nick and Nora mystery series originally from Berkley Prime Crime and now with Beyond the Page Publishing. They also write the Urban Tails Pet Shop Mysteries and the Tiffany Austin Food Blogger Mysteries, also available from Beyond the Page. A new series, Cozy Bookshop Mysteries, debuts from Severn House in July. Catch up with them at ROCCO’s blog, www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com, or her website, www.tclotempio.net

Social Media Links: 

Webpage: http://www.tclotempio.net  

Blog: http://www.catsbooksmorecats.blogspot.com  

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/toni.lotempio.5  

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