While Sunny is in the ladies room she hears several shots and the lights blink on and off. When Sunny emerges she finds big-haired waitress Phyllis McClint dead on the floor and a young rapper wannabe standing over her brandishing a gun. The young man, who prefers to be referred to as Superstar, claims he didn't shoot the waitress, that he just wants a large sum of money he is certain is hidden in the diner. With a diner full of unusual local characters, a SWAT team outside the door, Superstar requests Sunny to conduct an investigation of the customers to determine who shot the waitress.

Over half of the book is spent on this investigation as Sunny tries to outsmart Superstar and resolve the hostage situation. Her interview with the various colorful customers is cleverly interspersed with scenes of Esther Nixon and Superstar plotting a thriller. The pace of the book is brisk up to this point and Sunny is a tough, resourceful heroine.

Once the hostage situation is over, time seems a little disjointed as readers learn Sunny has been in the hospital and is now testifying before a grand jury that she believes someone other that Superstar, who disappeared in the commotion at the diner, killed the waitress. Sunny's life begins to spin out of control as she doggedly continues to investigate, stumbling across the answers before she realizes it.

Blue Plate Special starts off as a taut, tightly written mystery, but part way through the plot loses its focus and comes undone, as does normally feisty, tough Sunny Childs. She does get herself back together in the end, as the plot refocuses, a promise of better things to come.

As always, Ruth Birmingham's setting is right on. Cabbagetown is filled with generations of locals, each a bit more eccentric than the next, each reacting in their own way to the encroaching yuppies and their condos. Not one of Sunny's finer outings, yet an addition to the series that shows a side of Sunny rarely seen.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry