The Fondue Fatality

Nine people. One pot. One death. A culinary cozy mystery with recipes.

Monique Dubois came to Lauterbrunnen for the cheese.

Seventy-two waterfalls, one road in, and a valley so narrow the sun leaves the floor at three in the afternoon and does not come back. Monique is seventy-four, retired after fifty years on the stages of Paris, and travelling with a black cat who has firm opinions about cable cars. It should have been a quiet September.

But on the eve of the Chästeilet - the old ceremony where a summer's cheese is divided among the families who own the mountain - the alp's nine shareholders sit down to a shared fondue supper. Nine forks. Everybody eats.

One man dies.

By morning, the mountain is across the road. The cable is stopped. There is no human doctor, no pathologist, and nowhere to put a body but the cheese cellar.

The valley closes like a fist.

Several people at that table felt numbness or tingling that night. Only one of them died. Monique knows what that means, even if the young village policeman does not - and she has until the road opens to work out which of these neighbors knew exactly which mouthful to avoid.

Before the wrong person is blamed in front of everybody.

A destination cozy mystery featuring:

An amateur sleuth who spent fifty years watching people perform

A sealed alpine valley, a shared meal, and a fair-play puzzle

No gore, no profanity, and a cat who is never wrong

A recipe at the end - and what making it taught Monique

Every Monique Dubois mystery stands alone.

Paros. Djerba. İstanbul. Ischia. Lauterbrunnen. Each book is a complete case in a new country, with a new cast and its own ending. Begin with whichever place you would most like to be.

In a valley with walls, there is nowhere for anybody to go.