The Case of Italian Indigestion

Josie and Chef Claire are at La Bella Vita, a villa in Northern Italy near Lake Garda where they're attending a cooking school run by Marco and Rosa Columbo, the couple she studied under at culinary school. Also attending are an Italian couple thinking about opening their own restaurant, a trust-fund, surfer-dude who is considering a career as a chef just to get his parents off his back, a retired Russian spy they know from Las Vegas, and a Canadian woman who has spent a lot of time at C's, their restaurant in Clay Bay. But it's Georgio Russo, an inventor with a reputation as a ladies-man and a sketchy past, who has everyone on edge. What begins as a relaxing week soon turns deadly when Bronwyn, the wife of industrialist, Emerson Kingsley, is found dead after dinner. Without any visible wounds or blood, everyone, including the local cops, initially wonder if the woman died of natural causes or from a case of severe food poisoning. But things change when the local police learn she was poisoned by an unknown, deadly substance. And the heat gets turned up even further a few days later when the industrialist is found dead on the golf course. Josie and Chef Claire, now caught up in the mystery reach out to Suzy, who offers some assistance from the comfort of home. They also turn to Agent Tompkins, an FBI agent they've crossed paths with in the past. Soon, it becomes clear that both the dead industrialist and the mad inventor have been on the FBI's radar for a long time. And when Marco divulges to Chef Claire his financial difficulties as well as the fact that Georgio is one of his major investors, she is left wondering if her mentors might somehow be involved in a situation with major international implications. The Case of Italian Indigestion is the first installment in the spinoff series of B. R. Snow's popular Thousand Islands Doggy Inn mysteries. Readers can expect a lot of the same elements from the Doggy Inn series but with the additional bonus of several recipes highlighting Italian cuisine. Food, friendship, and dogs, wrapped in humor and a great mystery, continue to be central themes, and by the time The Case of Italian Indigestion wraps up, readers will be satiated as well as jonesing for some Italian food.