Mystery shopper Josie Marcus digs into another meaty murder investigation when a local restaurant owner is charged with picking off a problem customer…
Josie is getting a taste of St. Louis’s foodie scene—Travel America Guided Tours just hired her to test area restaurants for an upcoming package. Their list includes Tillie’s Off the Hill, a classic Italian joint owned by Tillie Minnelli, a former classmate of Josie’s mother. It should be a pretty sweet gig, but the assignment quickly turns sour when an unruly customer dies after eating Tillie’s special sauce.
While detectives move to put Tillie on ice for murder, Josie’s mom implores Josie to whip up another amateur investigation. The case has more secret ingredients than anyone anticipated: a jilted lover, a greedy real estate developer, and even a disgruntled employee. But there’s no time for Josie to savor all the possibilities, she must skewer the culinary killer before someone else is served a final course. (Summary via Amazon)
Death on a Platter by Elaine Viets is the seventh book in her Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Mystery series and it is one of my favorites. Once you begin reading books in a series, you tend to fall in love with the people and the town and everything else involved so with Death on a Platter being the seventh book and I have read the previous six, it's no surprise that I'm in love and hooked !!!
In Death on a Platter main character Josie Marcus gets a good mystery shopping job. She has to mystery shop restaurants for a food tour that is going to be in her area, St. Louis. Of course Josie is excited because she loves food !! She also gets her mother on board when one of the restaurants she has to visit is Tillie's Off the Hill which happens to be the restaurant of Jane's childhood friend. Luckily when Josie and Jane go there, they have a fairly good experience. The food is great, visiting with Tillie was great, however the clientele was not so great. Tillie had words with one of her regulars, Clay, for being so drunk and disruptive that she has to call the police.
Josie goes back to Tillie's Off the Hill with her best friend Alyce and unfortunately their experience is worse when again Clay is there and being disruptive. Tiller is overheard threatening Clay and when he requests hotter sauce, she gives him sauce so hot he ends up having to go to the hospital. Unfortunately Clay dies and Tillie is arrested for his murder.
Jane is so distraught that she insists that Josie do what she can to find out who killed Clay because she knows that Tillie didn't do it. EVen though Josie has "helped" solve murders in the past doesn't make her a professional in that field but she tells her mom she will do what she can.
Unfortunately Jane has a man in her life, Ted, that really cares for her and doesn't want her getting involved and getting hurt or worse....killed. So she now has to consider his feelings as well as her own, her daughters and her mothers.....unfortunately she is in a tug-of-war trying to please everyone.
Readers will become fans of the Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper Mystery series and will totally flip with the way Viets ends Death on a Platter !! You will want to rush to get the next book, Murder is a Piece of Cake, to see where things are heading for Josie and her crew.....I know I am excited and looking forward to digging in.....
Review by Missi M.
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