DEATH OF A LOBSTER LOVER

Three women's vacation from their everyday lives is cursed from the start.

Hayley, Liddy, and Mona enjoy getting away. So when Mona offers to take her friends to her uncle’s cabin in Salmon Cove, Maine, a place where she spent many happy days, they jump into Liddy’s Mercedes and head out. Divorced food columnist Hayley is always looking for new foods to report on, gruff Mona is happy to get away from her deadbeat husband and wild children, and Liddy, who’s a bit of a diva, claims that she’s taking a break from her boyfriend. When the cabin turns out to be a dump with an outhouse, Liddy refuses to stay. Unfortunately, the nearest hotel is fully booked, and Liddy’s ready to return to Bar Harbor when she meets drop-dead-handsome travel writer Jackson Young and decides that maybe the cabin’s not so bad. A visit to the local watering hole introduces the trio to some of the town’s more unusual citizens, including tough-as-nails owner Sue, waiflike Ellie, and her drunken grandfather Rufus. When Mona’s old friend Corey Guildford shocks her by walking into the bar, her friends realize that the two still have feelings for each other. Liddy’s upset when Jackson, who’s supposed to be her date for the lobster bake, stands her up, but they realize that he had an excellent excuse when they find him strangled on the beach. By now, Hayley’s already had a run-in with Sheriff Daphne Wilkes, a surly woman who clearly wants the visitors gone, Liddy has a key to Jackson’s room, and Hayley, who has a long history of sleuthing (Eggnog Murder, 2016, etc.), feels entitled to use it, but when the sheriff catches them snooping they end up in jail.

The recipes scattered through the book include several cocktail suggestions readers may need to get through this muddled mystery.