BLEEDING TARTS

By Kirsten Weiss

For those who missed falling head-over-heels in love with Kirsten Weiss’s characters when they premiered in Book One of the Pie Town Mystery series, “The Quiche and the Dead,” this one will absolutely earn your loyalty in seconds.

You are in the Old West…sort of, and Valentine Harris returns to provide her scrumptious pies for an upcoming pie-eating contest that’s being held at the Bar X. This just happens to be a cool (fake) ghost town set on the border of Silicon Valley that’s rented out for private events. Valentine is working her butt off to make great pies in order to bring in more customers to her Pie Town shop; while also striving to make the owner of the Bar X so happy with her product that she becomes their regular supplier from here on out.

Oddly enough, this is one pie-eating contest that is not filled with fun and frivolity. In fact, directly upon her arrival a bullet shoots the cherry pie that Valentine is carrying. So much for a fake ghost town, seeing as that murder is afoot. No, not the cherry pie, but the Bar X bartender who has been shot dead in an alley.

Try being a pie baker who now is on the hunt to solve a murder in a ghost town that’s not even real. Valentine deals with a little bit of everything in this great story, including her own friend and pie crust specialist, Charlese, who urges Valentine to bring down the bad guy who is apparently roaming the Old West of Silicon Valley.

Weiss has provided a follow-up that earns this series a gold star. Not only that, but she also offers up the most delicious pie recipes you could possibly imagine. It will be easy to savor every bite of both story and treat!