Welcome to my stop on the Great Escapes Virtual Book Tour for A Sense for Murder (A Sally Solari Mystery) by Leslie Karst. Stop by each blog on the tour for interviews, guest posts, spotlights, reviews and more!
A Sense for Murder (A Sally Solari Mystery)
by Leslie Karst
A Sense for Murder (A Sally Solari Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
6th in Series
Setting – California
Severn House (August 1, 2023)
Hardcover : 224 pages
Chef Sally Solari has – to her own bewilderment – built a reputation as a talented sleuth who keeps tripping over dead bodies. But getting mixed up in the curious case of a cookbook killer threatens to be the final chapter in not just her investigating career . . . but her life.
It’s the height of the tourist season in Santa Cruz, California, and Sally Solari has her hands full, both juggling crowds of hungry diners at her French-Polynesian restaurant Gauguin, as well as appeasing her father, who’s distressed at the number of homeless people camped out in front of Solari’s, the family’s Italian seafood restaurant out on the historic fisherman’s wharf.
Nevertheless, when Sally gets the opportunity to volunteer at a farm-to-table dinner taking place at the hip new restaurant and culinary bookshop Pages and Plums, she seizes the chance. Not only is it a fundraiser for an organization aiding the homeless and seniors, but up for auction at the event is a signed boxset of Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Sally’s hero, the renowned chef Julia Child.
But then the Pages and Plums dining room manager turns up dead – the locked cabinet containing the precious books now empty – and the irrepressible Sally once again finds herself up to her neck in a criminal investigation. She may have a sense for murder, but can Sally outwit a devious killer with a taste for French cooking before the villain makes mincemeat of her, too?
A Sense for Murder is a fast-paced, super fun culinary cozy mystery that will have your brain working and your mouth watering. And if you haven’t met sleuthing chef Sally yet, it’s safe to jump right in.
Author Guest Post: Choosing Recipes for My Culinary Mysteries
“What’s your favorite part of writing your mystery series?” is a question I’m often asked. And the answer is easy: Why, the food scenes, of course!
When I first decided to try my hand at writing a mystery novel, the one thing I knew for sure was that it had to be about food. I’ve been obsessed with food and cooking since junior high school, when my best friend and I used to try out recipes from the Time-Life Foods of the World cookbooks that our mothers would receive in the mail. (In particular, I remember being fascinated with the Russian Easter bread in the one with the intricately painted red-and-orange Easter eggs on the cover, as it was baked in a coffee can and contained saffron—a new spice for me—dissolved in rum.)
My love of food is such that, all the while working as a research and appellate attorney, I went back to school at night to receive a degree in culinary arts (which, I can tell you, was way more fun than law school!).
After some thought, I decided to set my mystery series in Santa Cruz, California—where I’ve lived since the 1970s—and to have as my protagonist a fourth-generation Italian gal named Sally Solari, whose family runs Solari’s, an old-school Italian-seafood place out on our historic fisherman’s wharf. In book one of the series, Dying for a Taste, Sally inherits Gauguin, her murdered aunt’s trendy, upscale French-Polynesian restaurant, thus setting the tone for the ensuing books: a conflict between her and her father, who thinks she now looks down on her Italian heritage and has become one of those annoying “foodies” who’ve descended upon their once-sleepy town.
Each of the six books in the series thus features food from both restaurants, with many of the scenes taking place at the hot line as the various characters cook up savory meals—along with clever ways to solve the different murders in each story.
So, of course I always need to come up with delectable, mouth-watering dishes for Sally and her gang to prepare—which, as I mentioned above, is my favorite part of writing the books.
For the Solari’s menu, I’ve relied heavily on what the real-life restaurants out on the Santa Cruz Wharf serve: items such as linguine with clam sauce, osso buco, cioppino, and crab salads. And in book one, there’s a recipe (yes, there are recipes in all the books!) for the Sunday gravy that Sally’s nonna prepares for the family dinner every weekend: braised meat simmered in tomato sauce, onion, garlic, red wine, and herbs (which recipe I got from a friend whose Italian father used to make it for their family when she was a kid).
The author’s mise en place for Mario’s Linguine with Clam Sauce
As for Gauguin, it’s been loads of fun coming up with dishes for its menu, which changes with the seasons. Each of the books is set during a different part of the year, so before I start writing, I consult charts for the various fruits, vegetables, and seafood available during that season in Northern California, and then start to brainstorm: Oooh, salmon and Asian greens are both available in May; they’d pair well as a Japanese-inflected dish. Or, plums are in season in August—how about I feature grilled peaches with a plum-and-balsamic vinegar glaze?
But then comes the hard part—and the part I’m not nearly so crazy about: coming up with actual recipes for the books. Because you see, I’m a good enough cook that I can concoct dishes in my head that I know will work in actuality, and when I do prepare dishes myself, I tend not to use a recipe. I’m more of a seat-of-the-pants kind of cook, who adds this and that, tastes, adds something else, tastes again, etc.
But for my books, I need actual recipes—with specific amounts for ingredients and specific cooking times. So I do what I always do, adding this and that, but this time writing down exactly what I included, and how much and when. And if I end up adding more sugar or flour or whatever to make the recipe work, I make note of that, as well.
And then I try them out on family and friends. But I make them work for their supper by providing feedback, whether positive and negative. Which they, of course, love—both the food and getting to render their opinions.
Because everyone dreams of being a food critic, n’est pas?
About Leslie Karst
Leslie Karst is the author of the Lefty Award-nominated Sally Solari mystery series and Justice is Served: A Tale of Scallops, the Law, and Cooking for RBG. After years waiting tables and singing in a new wave rock band, she decided she was ready for a “real” job and ended up at Stanford Law School. It was during her career as an attorney that Leslie rediscovered her youthful passion for food and cooking and once more returned to school—this time to earn a degree in culinary arts. Now retired from the law, Leslie spends her time cooking, cycling, gardening, observing cocktail hour promptly at five o’clock, and of course writing. She and her wife split their time between Santa Cruz, California, and Hilo, Hawai‘i.
Author Links
Website http://www.lesliekarstauthor.com/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lesliekarstauthor/
BookBub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/leslie-karst
GoodReads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14220589.Leslie_Karst
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesliekarst/
Twitter https://twitter.com/LeslieKarst
Purchase Links – Amazon – B&N – Bookshop.org
Enter the giveaway
A Sense for Murder TOUR PARTICIPANTS
July 25 – Celticlady’s Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
July 25 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – AUTHOR GUEST POST
July 26 – Novels Alive – REVIEW – SPOTLIGHT
July 26 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
July 27 – The Mystery of Writing – CHARACTER INTERVIEW
July 27 – Brooke Blogs – SPOTLIGHT
July 28 – fundinmental – SPOTLIGHT
July 28 – Ascroft, eh? – AUTHOR GUEST POST
July 29 – Maureen’s Musings – SPOTLIGHT
July 29 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
July 30 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
July 31 – Literary Gold – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 1 – Cozy Up With Kathy – AUTHOR INTERVIEW
August 1 – Carstairs Considers – REVIEW
August 2 – Cinnamon, Sugar, and a Little Bit of Murder – REVIEW, RECIPE
August 2 – Sapphyria’s Book Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
August 3 – #BRVL Book Review Virginia Lee – SPOTLIGHT
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I have read and enjoyed other books by this author.
Sounds like a book I will enjoy reading.
I really enjoyed the description of the book. Looking forward to reading it.
Congrats on the new release!
I am a fan of this series! Thanks for the chance to win!
This sound like a lot of fun. Thank you for the giveaway!