Author: Mindy Quigley
Series: Deep Dish Mysteries #3
Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Format: Kindle ARC
No. of Pages: 320
Date of Publication: December 26, 2023
My Rating: 4 Stars
Public Anchovy #1 is the third book in Mindy Quigley's delectable Deep Dish Mystery series, set in a Wisconsin pizzeria.
While Geneva Bay’s upper crust gets ready to party down at a Prohibition-themed fundraiser, pizza chef Delilah O’Leary is focused on seeing her struggling restaurant through the winter slow season. The temperature outside is plummeting, but Delilah’s love life might finally be heating up, as hunky police detective Calvin Capone seems poised to (finally) make a move.
But Delilah’s hopes of perfecting a new “free-from” pizza recipe for a charity bash are dashed when a dead body crashes the party. Soon, Capone, Delilah, and her entire staff are trapped in an isolated mansion and embroiled in a dangerous game of cat and mouse.
To catch an increasingly-desperate killer, Delilah will have to top all of her previous crime-solving accomplishments, and a few pizzas, too.
MY THOUGHTS:
Delilah O’Leary is quite successful with her rather new pizzeria. Asked to serve at an event, with the guest of honor having strict dietary needs, Delilah is bound and determined to meet her needs. Delilah gathers her friends and staff, and all of the supplies she can think of and heads to the party location on a lake property. This makes this third book in Mindy Quigley's series a locked room mystery.
When the guest of honor is found dead, the suspect pool is rather small, as they are stuck at their location. Shockingly, Delilah's hefty cat Butterball managed to stow away and just might be responsible for the death, as the victim apparently fell down the stairs.
Delilah can't imagine Butterball being responsible, and seeks to discover what really happened. She begins to question the guests, all while Detective Calvin Capone is there as well. While he would much rather Delilah step back, she has no intention of doing so. She makes Capone realize that with only so many guests, the murderer must be in their midst.
While this is a delightful cozy mystery story, the characters are a real joy. Delilah and Capone play well off of each other, and even his mother Lola plays her role in this story. As I have read the first two books in this series, Six Feet, Deep Dish and Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust, I loved seeing the relationship between Delilah and Calvin evolve, and also how Delilah shows her wit when it comes to solving murders. I do hope this series continues, as it is thoroughly enjoyable.
Many thanks to St. Martin’s Paperbacks and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Her short stories have won awards, including the 2018 Artemis Journal/Lightbringer Prize. Her non-writing career has been stranger than fiction, taking her from the US to the UK, where she worked as the personal assistant to the scientist who cloned Dolly the sheep, and as project manager for a research clinic founded by the author J.K. Rowling.
She lives in Virginia, with her Civil War history professor husband, their children, and their idiosyncratic miniature Schnauzer.
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