Best friend Eve sees things differently and insists Annie needs to get back on the horse. The way Eve chooses to get Annie out of the house is to sign them both up for cooking classes at Tres Bonne Cuisine. Annie is unsure, but is willing to give it a try, and shops for her first night’s ingredients with earnest.

At the class Annie meets many characters, the exotic and beautiful Romanian Beyla, the temperamental owner of the cookshop downstairs, and the sexy Scot Jim who is teaching the class. Annie is a stand out in the class, not because she is exceptionally pretty or witty, but because she is still the worst cook ever. Jim is a very patient teacher and Annie begins to have fantasies she hasn’t had in a while.

The first night after class, Annie and Eve witness an argument between Beyla and a man they learn to be called Drago. A few minutes after Beyla leaves, Drago is dead. Hoping to show up her ex-fiancé, the police detective in charge of the case, Eve decides she and Annie must investigate the murder and solve it before Tyler. Eve is certain Beyla killed Drago and takes her investigation from that point of view, following the woman’s every move. Just as she thinks she has got the goods to blow the whistle on her fellow classmate, things take a turn and Eve decides she may need Tyler’s help, or at least Annie’s, after all.

Cooking Up Murder is a fun, quick read, a new twist on the favorite culinary mysteries. Annie and Eve are as opposite as can be, but for the first part of the book they come across as flat characters. As the book progresses, Annie takes on more shape and becomes a more enjoyable character. The two young women decide early on (or at least Eve does) who is the murderer and let their guard down around other possible suspects, a mistake that almost costs them their life.

Because of Eve’s insistence that Beyla’s the murderer, readers will look harder at other characters and should spot what happened easily enough. The first in a new series, readers can look forward to Annie’s return and getting a chance to know other characters more.

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry