A Smoking Bun: A Bakeshop Mystery

by Ellie Alexander

Overview

Another delicious installment in the Bakeshop Series set in Ashland, OR!

The mountains are calling in Ashland, Oregon, where pastry chef turned amateur sleuth, Jules Capshaw, is baking up a bevy of spiced curry buns and chai cookies for a moonlit snowshoe tour. Ramiro’s family is visiting from Spain and Jules can’t wait to take them up to her beloved Mount A with its charming and rustic lodge, backcountry trails, and star-filled skies that stretch for miles. Their winter wonderland adventure is nothing short of magical and the merry party opts to return to the slope the next day for the Downhill Dummy.

The annual competition is a favorite amongst snow lovers. Contestants strap makeshift dummies to skis and send them hurling down a death-defying ski jump in hopes of catching big air. The team at Torte is in the mix this year with their own replica of a tiered cake and a baker who closely resembles their fearless leader. It’s a fun and festive atmosphere as dummies sail past the crowd to huge cheers and applause. Until one of the dummies takes a deadly detour and lands atop Fitz Baskin.

Fitz is a guide on the mountain and his icy dealings have made for frosty relationships with everyone he encounters. Suddenly there are more suspects than snowdrifts as Jules dives into the investigation. She unearths a web of secrets and motives that threaten to shake the rustic mountain lodge to its core. Can she catch the killer before they strike again, or will the truth be buried forever under fluffy layers of fresh snow?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250854438
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	02/20/2024
Series:	Bakeshop Mystery Series , #18
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	5,238
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

ELLIE ALEXANDER is a Pacific Northwest native who spends ample time testing pastry recipes in her home kitchen or at one of the many famed coffeehouses nearby. When she’s not coated in flour, you’ll find her outside exploring hiking trails and trying to burn off calories consumed in the name of research.

Ellie also loves hearing from her readers and interacting with them on social media.

ELLIE ALEXANDER is a Pacific Northwest native who spends ample time testing pastry recipes in her home kitchen or at one of the many famed coffeehouses nearby. When she's not coated in flour, you'll find her outside exploring hiking trails and trying to burn off calories consumed in the name of research. She is the author of the Bakeshop Mysteries, including Meet Your Baker and A Batter of Life and Death, as well as the Sloan Krause mysteries.

Editorial Reviews

"The lovingly described winter setting, both in town and at the ski lodge, the close-knit group of family and friends, the warm details of baking and running a bakeshop framing the story, and delicious-sounding recipes add up to a satisfying cozy." —Booklist

Praise for the Bakeshop Mysteries:

"This delectable series transports readers to Ashland, Oregon... I highly recommend this series to readers who enjoy clever plots, likable characters, and good food." —Mystery Scene on A Batter of Life and Death

"Alexander's charming series offers descriptions of enticingly fattening foods, a tour of southern Oregon, and, incidentally, a mystery that provides enough riddles to keep you guessing without ever upstaging the main event." —Kirkus Reviews on Till Death Do Us Tart

"A Batter of Life and Death is a delightful cozy mystery that will keep you turning pages to see what Jules is going to get into next.... Grab a few napkins, because you'll be drooling all over the pages as you read some of the delicious-sounding recipes these chefs are cooking up." —Fresh Fiction

"This debut culinary mystery is a light soufflé of a book (with recipes) that makes a perfect mix for fans of Jenna McKinley, Leslie Budewitz, or Jessica Beck." —Library Journal on Meet Your Baker

From the Publisher

2023-12-06
A weird murder that stuns residents of Ashland, Oregon, threatens to blight the coming New Year’s celebration.

Ashland is popular with residents and tourists alike for its natural beauty and its vaunted Shakespeare Festival. Juliet Capshaw Montague, the owner of Torte, a local bakeshop, is busy dealing with in-laws visiting from Spain. The first excursion she has planned, a nighttime snowshoe trip high on the ski mountain, doesn’t turn out quite the way she pictured. Their guide, Hero, is professional and cautious, but the outing is rudely interrupted by another guide, Fitz, a rule-breaking bully who shoves past them with two ladies, all on cross-country skis. The trio quickly get into trouble when Fitz takes his charges off the trail, and Hero has to call the ski patrol to rescue them. That minor bump in the road is nothing compared to what happens at the yearly downhill dummy contest, where fantastical dummies are sent down a slope to face spectacular wipeouts. Fitz, who seems to have been in the wrong place, is impaled by pieces of the last dummy, and Kendall Hankwitz, whose family owns the resort, insists that his death is murder. Jules has worked with her detective stepfather, known as the Professor, before. Despite a busy schedule entertaining her in-laws and furiously cooking and baking for holiday parties, she and her pals in crime-solving step up to help. Fitz was certainly disliked, but some of the revelations they uncover about the resort may provide even stronger motives for murder.

A many-faceted mystery often overwhelmed by delightfully detailed descriptions of culinary prep sure to delight foodies.

Kirkus Reviews