A Pie to Die for

For fans of Sofie Kelly and Joanne Fluke, it’s the end of the tourist season in Split Pine– but a murder at the Lucky Pie Diner stirs up trouble for the sleepy town in this series debut.

Este March runs the family-owned Lucky Pie Diner on Split Pine Island in Northern Michigan. The pies at Lucky Pie aren’t just good, they’re magical, with a family recipe that grants certain customers their greatest hopes and dreams when they eat the pie. The remote island is closed to outsiders over the winter months, but on the last day of the season, the unpopular new produce vendor, Jeff, turns up dead on his boat, and Split Pine Island’s peace goes up in smoke.

Tom Cunningham, the local sheriff, casts suspicion onto Este, who may have been the last person to see Jeff alive. Not to mention several people witnessed her getting into an argument with the rude vendor in some of his final hours. Este decides to clear her name and her diner’s reputation by launching her own investigation, which means she must turn suspicion on her friends and neighbors, because only a local could have murdered the victim.

As Este investigates, she uncovers a deeper web of secrets, finding that many of the locals had reason to either frame her, or kill the victim. The clock is ticking to figure out the killer, and the clues in the case are flakier than an apple pie. Este will have to uncover the killer before her future crumbles.

Gretchen Rue lives in the Canadian prairies, which affords her ample time to read during six months of winter. She plays cat mom to four mostly indifferent fur children, and plant mom to roughly 100 very demanding flora. When she isn't sipping tea and working on her next novel, she enjoys swimming, hiking, and watching baseball.