a holiday house party, homicide, and hearty deep dish pizza

When Delilah O’Leary agreed to cater the Chrismukkah house party for the Hoffmans, she thought it would be a fun evening of holiday bites and her signature deep dish pizzas from her restaurant Delilah & Son. She brought her staff as well as the food to make sure everything went smoothly. Sous chef Sonya Perlman-Doktor (the Son in the restaurant’s name) keeps everything running smoothly in the kitchen. Melody and Rabbit worked the room, serving tasty treats hot from the oven and taking away empty plates and glasses. Bartender Daniel was making drinks and keeping the women happy with his good looks and Puerto Rican charm. Everything was going smoothly.

Until it wasn’t.

Rabbit goes missing, and Delilah goes looking for him outside, in case he stepped out for a cigarette. Following his footsteps in the newly fallen snow, she ends up going around the house to the front door. She goes upstairs to see if that’s where he is. Instead, she bumps into a party guest, Natasha La Cotti, who is rude to her. Delilah doesn’t find Rabbit so she heads back downstairs, where she bumps into her brother-in-law Jonathan. Delilah is shocked, as her sister Shea had told her they couldn’t make it to Wisconsin for the holidays. Jonathan explains that he has some business friends there, and that his daughter Piper was there also, with her sorority sister Hadley Hoffman.

Delilah is happy to see him and her niece but upset that no one had told her that they were coming to Geneva Bay. Jonathan is just as surprised to see her there, but when she explains that she was catering, he said he’d remembered something about her moving there to open a restaurant. She invites them to the restaurant the next day for brunch, and then it’s time for her to clean up and get everything back to the restaurant.

It’s not until the next day, when the snow sculptors were getting ready to start on their gigantic snow artworks that the dead woman was found in one of the piles of snow. The woman turned out to be Natasha La Cotti, who Delilah had met briefly the night before. But the discovery of the crime meant that Delilah’s time with her boyfriend, detective Calvin Capone, the great-grandson of legendary gangster Al Capone, is cut short. Capone has to investigate, and all his suspects were at the Hoffman’s party the night before.

Now that Delilah knows that a woman was killed, possibly at the party she catered, and that the suspects include her employees and her brother-in-law, she can’t stop herself from looking into the crimes herself. In between holiday celebrations, busy nights working at the restaurant, and spending time with her Aunt Biz and cat Butterball, Delilah barely has time to question her suspects and try to keep her family and friends out of jail. And when her sister Shea does show up with their youngest, Caleb, Delilah really doesn’t understand what’s going on. She knows Shea is lying to her, but she doesn’t know why. The closer Delilah gets to the answers, the more she wonders just who it is she’s going to find at the end of her investigation.

Sleep in Heavenly Pizza is book four in Mindy Quigley’s Deep Dish Mystery series, and it’s just as appetizing as the others in this series. With smart writing and strong characters, this murder mystery is baked with a tasty crust, tangy marinara sauce, and plenty of melty cheese. The food descriptions are delectable, and the investigation is just as packed with secrets and red herrings as the pizza is with delicious toppings.

Despite my cheesy description (sorry), I had a lot of fun reading Sleep in Heavenly Pizza. The relationships that Delilah has built with her friends are as interesting as the murder investigation, and her burgeoning relationship with Detective Capone adds a nice balance to the story. There are even recipes at the end of the book for the Tear-and-Share Christmas Tree Pizza Bread, Hanukkah Jelly Doughnuts, Imperfectly Perfect Latkes, and Puerto Rican Eggnog, so you can create some of Delilah & Son’s holiday deliciousness in your own kitchen.

Egalleys for Sleep in Heavenly Pizza were provided by Minotaur Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.