MURDER ON THE MENU: A Cooking Class Mystery #2 - Miranda Bliss

From the back of the book: Best friends Annie and Eve know the bare bones of both cooking and amateur sleuthing. Now, they're in the trenches, struggling to hkeep a new restaurant, Bellwashers, from going belly up.

Annie and Even have joined their former cooking teacher, Jim--who doubles as Annie's on-again, off-again boyfriend--in running his new restaurant. Bombshell Eve is the hostess, while Annie stays behind the scenes, frantically managing everything from the books to the radicchio supply. Then a rave review makes the spot an instant success, drawing Washington's high-powered elite to sample Jim's cooking. People with both money and secrets to burn.

Everything's simmering along just fine until Annie and Eve find their friend, Sarah, staffer for a powerful congressman, lying dead in her tub. The cops want to write it off as a suicide, but the girls notice that, like Annie's invoices, the facts just don't add up. Then, after a series of suspicious "accidents" that come dangerously close to taking the girls permanently out of commission, Annie and Eve realize that this kitchen fires isn't about to put itself out.....

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This was a cutie-pie of a cozy. I could be friends with these two girls, probably Eve more so than Annie. Eve is sweet and funny and goofy, even being a hottie and all. Annie is wound a little too tight with her organizational skills and worries, but still is a good person at heart and wants to help Eve figure out who killed their friend Sarah. Yes, the police had deemed it a suicide after seeing the scene and finding a note, but Eve and Annie find little clues that lead them to believe something else happened. That led smoothly into their investigation, which I always appreciate in an amateur sleuth mystery.

I liked the atmosphere of the restaurant scenery and the characters are nicely drawn. Sometimes the action happened a little too co-ink-ee-dink-a-lee, like making kitchen-phobic Annie work one night helping the chef when one of the assistants was out of commission with a bad reaction to putting green dye in his hair, but the story moved along and all was accomplished in a timely manner.

I liked the ending with the 'whoa, did not see that one coming' tweak.

All in all, I look forward to reading the rest of the series and seeing what happens to my buds, Annie, Eve and Jim and Bellywashers the restaurant.

Four sparkly kitchen diamonds......