Killer Sweet Tooth: A Daphne Martin Cake Mystery (Daphne Martin Cake Mysteries)

Cake decorator Daphne Martin finds herself in the middle of a murder investigation—and an Elvis impersonator convention—with a bullseye on her back.

Dead as a...dentist?

They say sugar is bad for your teeth, but can it actually kill you? The Brea Ridge police seem to think so when they find cake decorator Daphne Martin wielding an oversized plastic toothbrush over a dentist’s dead body. Daphne moved back to her small Virginia hometown just months ago to open her Daphne’s Delectable Cakes business and already she’s been mixed up in murder. Now she’s got to prove her sweet innocence again.

After hours of police questioning, Daphne returns home to find Elvis Presley in her driveway. She’s certain she’s hallucinating until the leather-clad hunk orders up a pink Cadillac cake for a convention of the Elvis impersonators. Daphne accepts, but her reporter-boyfriend Ben is suspicious of Elvis’s intentions. Does the King want to make Daphne his confectionery queen? Or is the convention a ruse for a more sinister operation? Daphne’s own investigation into Dr. Bainsworth’s murder, meanwhile, reveals the dentist made as many enemies as he did fillings. Just about anyone could have done him in, but it’s up to Daphne to find the killer—and finish Elvis’s cake—before she’s the one singing “Jailhouse Rock.”

Gayle Trent (who also goes by the pseudonym Amanda Lee) writes the Daphne Martin Cake Decorating series and the Embroidery Mystery series. She lives in Virginia with her family, which includes her own “Angus” who is not an Irish wolfhound but a Great Pyrenees who provides plenty of inspiration for the character of Mr. O’Ruff. Her book Killer Wedding Cake won a bronze medal in the IPPY Cozy Mystery category for 2016.