The Clue is in the Pudding

A Special Pennyfoot Hotel Mystery #20

by Kate Kingsbury

Berkley Prime Crime

November 6, 2012

ISBN-10: 0425253279

ISBN-13: 9780425253274

Available in: Trade Size

The Clue is in the Pudding
by Kate Kingsbury

The kitchen staff of the Pennyfoot Hotel is toiling away to prepare the finest meal for the guests on Christmas. And the plum pudding may very well be to die for...

Cecily Sinclair Baxter could use a Christmas miracle. Mrs. Chubb, the Pennyfoot’s housekeeper, must travel up north for a family emergency, and Cecily needs a temporary replacement. The agency doesn’t have much to offer on short notice during this busy time of year. But they have someone—Beatrice Tucker—who turns out to be more of a curse. She fights with just about everyone, including Archibald Armitage.

Star of the London stage, Armitage is staying at the Pennyfoot this holiday season. His presence turns out to be a blessing after he rescues the stable manager’s dog from drowning in the icy duck pond. But not everyone in Badgers End is a fan of the actor...

When Armitage drops dead after Beatrice serves him some plum pudding, everyone assumes the huffy housekeeper is the culprit. But as Cecily begins to investigate, the list of suspects grows, and solving this case may not be as easy as pie...or pudding.



Kate Kingsbury's Bio

Doreen Roberts Hight was first published at the age of eight. Her letter appeared in the children's section of a national newspaper in her native England. Born in London five years before the onset of WW II, she remembers vividly the days and nights spent in bomb shelters, where she entertained her schoolfriends by making up stories. She often contributes her love of writing about danger and suspense to those perilous times, when just waking up in the mornings was a major victory.

Although she dabbled in writing all her life, it wasn't until after her fiftieth birthday that she saw her first book in print. After reading romance novels since her teens, she blended danger into her love stories, and sold her first romantic suspense to Silhouette Books Intimate Moments line in 1987.

After writing several books for Silhouette under the name of Doreen Roberts, her agent suggested she try her hand at writing mysteries. Thus Kate Kingsbury was born. Many of Kate's characters in the Pennyfoot Hotel series are based on people she met while managing her family's seaside hotel on the southeast coast of England. Her current series, The Manor House Mysteries, was inspired by her experiences during the Second World War.

Doreen now lives in Oregon with her husband, Bill, who is also her manager. They share the household with Tippi, a rat terrier who thinks she's a Great Dane. In the last fifteen years, Doreen has written over forty books, many of which have appeared in countries all over the world. She has made the Waldenbooks Top Ten Romance list six times.