Silence of the Hams

Housewife and sleuth Jane Jeffry makes her seventh outing in this breezy mystery of Agatha Award-winning author Churchill (A Quiche Before Dying). When loathed attorney Robert Stonecipher is felled by a rack of hams at the opening of a neighborhood deli where Jane's son works, she and her friend, Shelley, begin snooping. With reluctant help from her boyfriend, homicide detective Mel VanDyne, Jane uncovers plenty of skeletons in closets, all the while trying to find time to restock her own pantry, chaperone the school's grand night party and make peace with her teenage daughter. Complicated by plenty of twists and seasoned with wit, the investigation of Stonecipher's death should build reader appeal for Churchill's first hardcover, War and Peas, scheduled for release in November. (July)