the key to cubano cuisine and cracking a killer

Hayley Snow is working as an ambassador. Informally, of course. As the food critic for Key West’s culture magazine Key Zest, she has the chance to review Cuban restaurants in her Florida town and to talk about the culture and history of the food of Cuba for her readers. But this weekend, she has the chance to do more.

It’s the weekend of the Havana/Key West Conference, and her mother has taken on the catering for this important event. She has planned out several delicious dishes that feature the flavors of Cuba as well as Florida, but she needs help. So Hayley and her octogenarian roommate Miss Gloria have offered to help. Hayley knows it will be a long weekend of food prep, serving, cleaning, and doing anything else her mother needs. But this conference will feature leaders from Key West and from Cuba, so she knows how important it is.

But even before the conference gets started, her boyfriend calls her aside and asks her to think again. As a detective, Nathan has access to information that Hayley doesn’t, so it makes her pause when he asks her not to be a part of the conference. But he can’t give her specifics, and she’s promised her mother, who has bought all the food and has already done a lot of the prep. Hayley feels she has to go through with it. Even the next day, as they go through the security check to get to the Little White House, an important place in American/Cuban history and where there is a display of artifacts from Ernest Hemingway.

Hayley is ready to get the conference started, but the protestors outside make her feel conflicted. Even with surprise guest Jimmy Buffett showing up to entertain the group, the conference attendees are on edge. And then Hemingway’s Nobel prize goes missing. The gold medallion had not left Cuba since the author had gifted it to the country, and the first time the Cuban government allows America to borrow it to display, it goes missing. Hayley tries to see if she can help find it. But before she can get very far, Gabriel is found dead. Maria was working with Hayley’s mother in the kitchen, and her brother Gabriel had come to help out also. And now he’s been killed.

Hayley has been in the middle of the conference, so she feels like she’s in a unique position to help figure out who would murder Gabriel. But can she figure it out before the conference is canceled, or before someone causes an international incident?

Death on the Menu is Lucy Burdette’s eighth book in her Key West Food Critic Mystery series, featuring the culture of Key West and lots of beautiful food writing. This book features a lot of descriptions of Cuban food, which was hard to read because I didn’t get to eat any of it. All those Cubano sandwiches! I did struggle with that, but I liked the story. There were some amazing surprises, and I really learned a lot about America’s history with Cuba and about Hemingway (although I did already know about his cats).

I listened to this one on audio, and narrator Laura Jennings really brought this story to life. I love to read, but my eyes have been especially tired lately, so listening to the audio book for Death on the Menu really helped me out. It’s a powerful story and some great characters. And I did love the ending for this one. This book has something specal.

Egalleys for Death on the Menu were provided by Crooked Lane Books through NetGalley, but I got the audio book myself through Audible.