Murder Takes the Cake

When a celebrity chef judging a Charleston cake-baking contest is strangled, blue-blooded detective Edna Dugué and her streetwise assistant, Jerrelle Vesey, assist the primary suspect, who’s not cooperating. Observed crouching over the victim’s body and vilified for being the son of illegal immigrants, he’s panicked and disappeared. Other suspects are plentiful. The chef, a board member at the company sponsoring the cake contest, was battling for control of the contest with a company vice president, and she’d reportedly had an affair with the CEO that turned ugly. In addition, she’d infuriated the daughter and granddaughter of the company’s founder by lobbying the board to accept a takeover bid. Another with a murder motive is the chef’s replacement as cake-baking judge, a rival bitter about not being selected as judge when the contest began. There’s also the chef’s ex-husband, apoplectic about terms of their divorce, who benefits from her death. As Edna and Jerrelle probe, they uncover a connection between the chef’s death and an old murder long considered solved. There’s reason to believe the chef knew the identity of the real killer and attempted blackmail.