"Books, Cooks, and Crooks" by Lucy Arlington / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Down in Inspiration Valley, North Carolina – don’t you just love the name? – the kitchen blows up and the mystery hits the fan.  The problem is not finding the killer, but eliminating everyone who would like to see the deceased dead.  Ellery Adams and Sylvia May are the writing team behind “Lucy Arlington” and, boy, do they work well together.  Distance is no barrier for this creative team: Adams lives in Virginia and May lives in Bermuda.  (I’d love to have a collaborative partner somewhere in the Caribbean; would love to get a tax write-off on that get-together.)  “Books, Cooks, and Crooks” is the third book in their series.  In this episode, Inspiration Valley is having their annual Taste of the Town Festival.  Lila Wilkins is a literary agent in town (the Novel Idea Literary Agency) and sleuth, who happens to be helping to put this event together.  She’s probably not the first agent to think she has a killer client.  (I know my agent thinks that about me…yeah, right.)  Anyway, living in an idyllic little town myself, I can relate completely to these annual town gatherings.  If you like a book about crazy agents…well, I won’t go there.  Arlington writes clever mysteries with characters I can completely understand.  It’s always a pleasure spending an evening in Inspiration Valley.

This should give you something to read for the next few days.  Get in touch with these authors, learn about them, check out their other series, and buy their books.  And tell them you would like to see them at this year’s Killer Nashville.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

Clay Stafford

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com).  As a writer himself, he has over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). A champion of writers, Publishers Weekly has identified Stafford as playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” throughout “the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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