Kansas City chef Heaven Lee is one tough cookie. Not only can she slice, dice, and julienne the finest food in town, she's got nerves of steel to match her culinary skills. From deadly barbeques to bodies in dough, one things for sure: Heaven Lee can outsmart and outcook them all. Heaven Lee is tackling the world of soul food and jazz . When a big jazz festival comes to town, the chief organizer is murdered. Of course Heaven Lee was around for the murder and gets fingered as a suspect, along with many other Kansas City residents who also seemed to dislike her. But the festival must go on, so Heaven and the rest of her crew have to cook and get the music started all while avoiding becoming the killer's next target.
In the summer of 1987, Johnny Boone set out to grow and harvest one of the greatest outdoor marijuana crops in modern times. In doing so, he set into motion a series of events that defined him and his associates as the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in American history, also known as the Cornbread Mafia. Author James Higdon—whose relationship with Johnny Boone, currently a federal fugitive, made him the first journalist subpoenaed under the Obama administration—takes readers back to the 1970s and ’80s and the clash between federal and local law enforcement and a band of Kentucky farmers with moonshine and pride in their bloodlines. By 1989 the task force assigned to take down men like Johnny Boone had arrested sixty-nine men and one woman from busts on twenty-nine farms in ten states, and seized two hundred tons of pot. Of the seventy individuals arrested, zero talked. How it all went down is a tale of Mafia-style storylines emanating from the Bluegrass State, and populated by Vietnam veterans and weed-loving characters caught up in Tarantino-level violence and heart-breaking altruism. Accompanied by a soundtrack of rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues, this work of dogged investigative journalism and history is told by Higdon in action-packed, colorful and riveting detail.
Heaven Lee has lived in Kansas City a long time, and she thought she knew as much as there was to know about her hometown. But when her longtime friend Stephanie Simpson starts a new business as a chocolatier after divorce, Heaven is surprised and delighted to find out that Stephanie is getting back to her family roots with her new enterprise. As it turns out, her mother was heir to the famous Foster's Chocolates fortune, a chocolate company that is a Kansas City institution. That is, until her brothers, Stephanie's uncles, swindled her out of her share lo these many years ago. Still, Stephanie is excited to be back in the family business, albeit in a small way with her own downtown chocolate shop, and Heaven can't wait to learn all about chocolate. She's got a restaurant to run, of course, and is always on the lookout for new ways to use traditional ingredients. The pair's excitement turns suscpicious, however, when a giant blimp advertising the 50th anniversary of Foster's is shot down almost directly on top of Stephanie's new store, its pilot dead before he hits the ground. Is this terrible event a direct threat to Heaven's friend's new business? Or is it all just a big coincidence? Heaven suspects the former, and when her friend's livelihood, not to mention her life, is on the line, no one can stop her from getting at the truth. She'll figure out what's going on and be back in time for dessert in Death Is Semisweet--a smart, saucy entry in the Heaven Lee Culinary Mystery series from fan favorite Lou Jane Temple. Complete with many sinfully delicious chocolate recipes!
Police lieutenant Karl Genesko and his fiance, computer pro Anneke Haagen, are finally tying the knot. But when Karl is called away to investigate a mail-bomb murder, the victim turns out to be one of the computer gamers in Anneke's on-line chats. As both Karl and Anneke are suspected, they create a murder game to catch a killer on-line. Martin's Press.
This is a detailed study of the material lives of the middle classes in the pre-industrial era, a period which saw considerable growth in consumption. Lorna Weatherill has brought her highly important survey up-to-date in the light of new research. She provides a new introduction and bibliography, taking account of the latest academic writing and methodological advances, including computing, and offers further conclusions about her work and its place in current literature. Three main types of documentation are used to construct the overall picture: diaries, household accounts, and probate inventories. In investigating these sources she interprets the social meaning of material goods; and then goes on to relate this evidence to the social structures of Britain by wealth, status and locality. Breaking new ground in focusing on households and the use of probate inventories, Weatherill has provided a book which gives both a general account of the domestic environment of the period, and a scholarly analysis of the data on consumption patterns.
Like other fictional characters, female sleuths may live in the past or the future. They may represent current times with some level of reality or shape their settings to suit an agenda. There are audiences for both realism and escapism in the mystery novel. It is interesting, however, to compare the fictional world of the mystery sleuth with the world in which readers live. Of course, mystery readers do not share one simplistic world. They live in urban, suburban, and rural areas, as do the female heroines in the books they read. They may choose a book because it has a familiar background or because it takes them to places they long to visit. Readers may be rich or poor; young or old; conservative or liberal. So are the heroines. What incredible choices there are today in mystery series! This three-volume encyclopedia of women characters in the mystery novel is like a gigantic menu. Like a menu, the descriptions of the items that are provided are subjective. Volume 3 of Mystery Women as currently updated adds an additional 42 sleuths to the 500 plus who were covered in the initial Volume 3. These are more recently discovered sleuths who were introduced during the period from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999. This more than doubles the number of sleuths introduced in the 1980s (298 of whom were covered in Volume 2) and easily exceeded the 347 series (and some outstanding individuals) described in Volume 1, which covered a 130-year period from 1860-1979. It also includes updates on those individuals covered in the first edition; changes in status, short reviews of books published since the first edition through December 31, 2008.
Kansas City's premier restaurateur, Heaven Lee, accidentally finds the upended body of champion barbeque cooker and giant pain Pigpen Hopkins sticking out of a potent pot of his extra-special secret barbeque sauce. Unfortunately, Heaven has had problems with the law before, and even though she came out clean, this is one sticky mess that's hard to explain.
Restaurateur Heaven Lee investigates two murders during a convention of bread bakers in Kansas City, including that of a world-famous baker. Lots of recipes and detail on the making of bread.
The knives are out! Heaven Lee-- proprietress extraordinaire of Kansas City's celebrated Cafe Heaven-- knew she had to watch her back at Aspen's gossipy Real Dish Food Festival. But it wasn't until the saucy cook stumbled across the battered body of one of the Best Chef contestants that she realized how deadly the competition could be. Every June, five thousand gourmands from across the globe gather in the chic resort town of Aspen, sipping wine in the pristine mountain air as five celebrity chefs battle for the Best Chef title. When the competitors start to drop, there's a bountiful supply of suspects. The intrepid Heaven discovers scores to settle, Hollywood ambitions, and outright malice before making sure a vicious killer gets their just deserts!
