the control freak's guide to running a restaurant and solving crimes

Delilah O’Leary is looking forward to a couple of days away from the restaurant. With her running her deep dish pizza restaurant and her boyfriend Calvin Capone a police detective, they don’t get a lot of time alone together. But somehow their schedules line up for a weekend, and she is excited for a couple of uninterrupted days off.

Her restaurant partner Sonya is spending the weekend with her girlfriend Willow Wilson at a wellness retreat. Willow is working as event planner for Rhiannon Frost. Rhiannon is hosting this 2-day meditation retreat to celebrate her new book, Aspire/Inspire: EmBrace Your EmPowered Self. The retreat is at a new event space in Geneva Bay, a wealthy village just a few hours away from Chicago. So when the caterers pulled out of the event at the last minute, Willow has to find a replacement who is close enough to get the first meal there in mere hours.

Delilah wants to say no to the last-minute catering job, but Sonya wants to jump in and help her girlfriend. So Delilah pulls together the few resource she has and starts cooking, watching her romantic weekend melt away. She even recruits Capone to play bartender, so they can still spend time together. But the last-minute job gives Delilah less time to worry about the text she got from her ex-fiance.

Sam had texted to say he was going to be in the area and wanted to see their cat Butterball. After they broke up, Sam decided to travel, but he had a large house in Geneva Bay that he had gotten for them. He insisted that Delilah and her aunt stay there, as long as they took care of Butterball. Delilah adores Butterball, so she was fine with the arrangement. But does Sam’s coming back to town, with his girlfriend SilverMoon, mean that he wants to move back and take over the house?

The first meal that Delilah makes for the wellness group goes well, and Rhiannon invites her and Capone to the retreat. But when the first meditation ends with a murder, Delilah, known for her crime solving skills as well as her cooking skills, is the first on the scene, and she is ready to investigate. She guesses pretty quickly that the woman had been poisoned, but she doesn’t know why or how or by whom.

Was someone wanting to sabotage Rhiannon’s book launch? Could it be SilverMoon, Sam’s girlfriend? Her famous father? Or someone who is trying to scare them away from continuing to run the new event space? Sonya’s mother Fran had been acting strangely, and Delilah had seen her walking around during the meditation, so she had the opportunity, but why would she have killed the woman? Plus, Delilah had known for her a long time and didn’t think she could really be a killer. So why is she acting so weird?

As Capone collects evidence and Delilah asks questions, they start to put together the pieces of the puzzle. But the closer they get to the truth, the closer they get to someone who wants to keep that a secret. Will they be able to find the killer before that person can strike again?

Murder in the Upper Crush is book 6 in Mindy Quigley’s popular Deep Dish Mystery series. These mysteries are always deliciously plotted, and they even include some of the tasty recipes at the end. I always have a good time at Delilah and Son’s pizza place, and this was no exception. I loved the setting of this story, at the meditation retreat, and there were several new characters who added a lot of interest to this story. There were some nice red herrings, and a satisfying ending. Although I will say, as I’ve said with all the other books in this series, it left me hungry for pizza.

Egalleys for Death in the Upper Crust were provided by Minotaur Books through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.