A Catered Fourth of July: A Mystery with Recipes

In Crawford’s diverting 10th mystery featuring catering sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons (after 2013’s A Catered Christmas Cookie Exchange), the big draw of the Fourth of July extravaganza in Longely, N.Y., is a reenactment of a Revolutionary War battle with authentic uniforms and equipment. The replica muskets are, of course, not functional—with the exception of one prepared especially for use by womanizer Jack Devlin. When the musket explodes on firing and kills Devlin, attention focuses on Libby’s beau, Marvin, who was in charge of providing the weapons, despite there being no dearth of more likely suspects. The police won’t look elsewhere even after someone shoots at Marvin’s car, so Bernie decides she and Libby must find the real killer before Marvin ends up in prison. Scorned women, jealous husbands, Wiccans, and Hilda the pet pig add to the cozy fun. [em]Agent: Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency. (July) [/em]