Leslie Budewitz

As the Spice Shop Mysteries continue with GUILTY AS CINNAMON (December 2015, Berkley Prime Crime/Penguin Random House), Pepper Reece knows that fiery flavors are the spice of life. But when a customer dies of a chili overdose, she finds herself in hot pursuit of a murderer…Springtime in Seattle’s Pike Place Market means tasty foods and wide-eyed tourists, and Pepper’s Seattle Spice Shop is ready for the crowds. With flavorful combinations and a fresh approach, she’s sure to win over the public. Even better, she’s working with several local restaurants as their chief herb and spice supplier. Business is cooking, until one of Pepper’s potential clients, a young chef named Tamara Langston, is found dead, her life extinguished by the dangerously hot ghost chili—a spice Pepper carries in her shop.Now stuck in the middle of a heated police investigation, Pepper must use all her senses to find out who wanted to keep Tamara’s new café from opening—before someone else gets burned…I fell in love with Seattle’s Pike Place Market as a college student, and still spends hours prowling its streets and alleys on every visit to the Emerald City. I’m also the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in Northwest Montana. Death al Dente won the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First novel. That followed my 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction for Books, Crooks & Counselors: How to Write Accurately About Criminal Law & Courtroom Procedure, drawing on my thirty years as a lawyer—and making me the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. I’m president of Sisters in Crime, and passionate about writers helping other writers. I love to cook, eat, hike, travel, garden, and paint—not necessarily in that order. I lives in northwest Montana with my husband Don Beans, a doctor of natural medicine, and our Burmese cat Ruff, a book cover model and an avid bird watcher. For seasonal updates, please visit my website at http://www.LeslieBudewitz.com, to sign up for emails about new releases, launch parties and other fun goings-on, and book giveaways.Find me on Facebook as Leslie Budewitz Author. Drop by my blog, www.LeslieBudewitz.com/blog, for ways writers of all genres can use legal issues in their fiction--undue influence, wrongful conviction, and more.