Lucy Arlington – Book, Cooks and Crooks

The third book in the Novel Idea Mystery series, published Febuary 4, 2014.
Genre: cozy mystery
Cover: lovely



The national bestselling Novel Idea Mysteries are back, as Lila Wilkins—literary agent and sleuth—is setting up a delicious cookbook fair. But the tension in the kitchen is about to boil over…
Inspiration Valley, North Carolina, is bubbling with excitement for the Taste of the Town festival, and Lila is right in the middle of it all. Along with her coworkers at the Novel Idea Literary Agency, Lila is organizing a grand celebrity chef event, featuring food television's biggest stars, complete with cooking demonstrations, cookbook giveaways, and even a culinary writing contest.
But just as the celebration is about to start, the demo kitchen blows up, taking one of the star cooks with it. With all the explosive egos of the cook's colleagues, it's hard to find someone who didn't have a motive to eliminate the competition. Now Lila will have to scramble to figure out which of her clients is a killer—before someone else gets burned.



The Novel Idea Literary Agency is sponsoring the towns newest festival, the Taste of the Town. A lot of fun events are planned, for adults and for kids. Some famous t.v chefs are competing in a contest; there are new cookbooks to sell and dishes to judge. There is so much work behind the scenes to have it all go smoothly, and I enjoyed reading about that aspect of the festival as well.

But those famous tv personalities are not so charming and loveable in real life, they seem to dislike each other intensely, and say spiteful things behind the others back, and in their faces. And when one of them is killed, there are surely suspects galore. Lila’s boyfriend and police officer Sean Griffiths sure can use her help in finding out the nasty truth behind it all. Especially when another chef gets killed, someone who everyone seems to hate.

When those famous chefs are forbidden to leave town until the murders are solved, as they are all suspects, it is up to Lila and her co-workers to keep them entertained, and to flush out the murderer.


I do love this world the writing duo named Lucy Arlington has created. I want to live there. I always love coming home to Inspiration Valley, it is such a lovely little town and I would love to visit the coffee shop and meet Lila’s best friend and barista Makayla.
I like reading about Lila’s work of reading query letters from authors and finding new gems in the rough the represent at the agency. Her co-workers sure an eccentric mix of characters.

I like the literary agency as a backdrop for the series. And this time it has famous t.v. chefs who want to become the next best selling cook book authors as well. They all have different specialities, so they should not really be so competitive, but they are. They won’t share the limelight with anyone else. They are convinced they are the best and the competition is not good enough. Being Dutch myself, I loved the fact that one of them uses the Dutch recipes of her grandmother (oma) and uses the Dutch language. To suddenly see dishes I like appear in a book is fun.

I loved finding out their secrets with Lila. Lila is a great character, she has raised her son Trey mostly by her self and now he is safely off to college after his previous adventure at a commune. They are close, and I enjoy their new dynamics. Lila’s mother Althea has the second sight, and although Lila does not really want to believe in that, she cannot refute everything her mother tells her, or warns her about.
Sean is also great for Lila and their relationship is progressing nicely.

Makayla has found herself a secret admirer, and she is really happy about that. I absolutely loved how he revealed himself to her, and asked her out. That was amazing, and I really cannot see something like that happening in real life at all.

Now the murderer, that was a bit of a surprise, I became suspicious when he or she tried to frame someone else. But the reason behind it all, that was unsuspected and a kind of scary and sad.

A very well written murder mystery, with loveable characters, a great setting, what more can you want? Read it.

9 stars.

© 2014 Reviews by Aurian