Hi! My name is Allie Larkin. Welcome to the Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack!

A day in my life? If you’d asked me a couple of months ago, I’d tell you all about my hours in the studio rehearsing with New England Ballet Theater. But everything changed when I broke my ankle in a fall down the stairs of my home in Boston.

How does a ballerina fall down the stairs? I’m still asking myself. Nobody pushed me – my friend Verity has conspiracy theories on the brain – but I did have the oddest feeling that, well, there was something on the stairs, something that tangled around my ankles. But when I went back to look at the stairs there was nothing but a couple of nail holes that could have been there for years.

Now my days begin at dawn at my Aunt Gully’s Lazy Mermaid Lobster shack. I went from Nutcracker to Lobster cracker so fast it still makes my head spin. Don’t get me wrong. I love working at the Mermaid. The shack’s a landmark in town. The weathered gray shingles are covered with old buoys and the inside walls are covered with what Aunt Gully calls her mermaidabilia – every mermaid figurine, doll, and tchotchke you can imagine. The sea green walls are painted with fanciful sea creatures, and the ceiling is covered with scales, as if a giant mermaid was swimming overhead.

The shack is right on the water and lobstermen and women deliver their catches to our dock. Aunt Gully’s friend Hector steams the tasty crustaceans, then his wife, Hilda, and I pick the lobster, cracking the shell and taking out the delectable meat. We make lobster rolls and wait on customers while Aunt Gully stirs up pots of her secret recipe Lobster Love sauce and prize-winning chowder.

I’m used to hours of rehearsal, costume fittings, tutus and toe shoes. Now it’s hour-long lines of hungry tourists, hairnets and a t-shirt printed with a clamshell bikini top. Aunt Gully’s design.

Thanks a lot, Aunt Gully.

The Lazy Mermaid’s in my hometown of Mystic Bay, Connecticut. Imagine a New England village with a bright white lighthouse standing tall against a deep blue sky, sea captain’s houses with widow’s walks, and plenty of charming shops ringing the town green – that’s Mystic Bay. You can find the Mermaid at the end of Pearl Street, a narrow lane in the historic district. There’s an old-fashioned wooden mermaid figurehead by the shack’s front door. Yes, she’s wearing a bikini top – that’s my Aunt Gully for you. Picture yourself sitting on the pier behind our little shack, sunlight sparkling on the water as sailboats glide by. Savor the view as you bite into a buttery lobster roll on a golden toasted bun. Summer vacation perfection, right?

Everything was going perfectly at the Mermaid until the Mystic Bay Food Festival disaster. The judges were poisoned and one of them died. Then the police got it into their heads that Aunt Gully’s the little old lady murderer of Mystic Bay.

Instead of silk ribbons, my ankle is wrapped in a cast and that does slow me down. I can’t wait to get back to dancing. But in the meantime, I’ve got to prove that Aunt Gully is innocent.

One thing’s for sure – sleuthing sure beats picking lobster!

You can read more about Allie in Curses, Boiled Again!, the first book in the NEW “Lobster Shack” mystery series.

Welcome to the seaside hamlet of Mystic Bay, where the fish is always fresh, the folks are ever-friendly, and murder is on a roll. . .

Allie Larkin was living her dream as a ballet dancer when a bad fall put her out of business. Now she’s back home in Mystic Bay to heal a broken ankle while also helping her dear Aunt Gully get her Lazy Mermaid Lobster Shack off the ground. Nothing would help Gully more than winning the local food festival’s Best Lobster Roll contest. The competition is sure to be killer―especially after one of the contest judges dies after eating a roll from one of Gully’s biggest rivals.

Soon, all eyes fall on Gully as the prime suspect. Allie may only have one good leg to stand on, but she’s not going to let her aunt go down for a crime she never could have cooked up. Can Allie, along with her devoted crew of friends, family, and customers, find a way to trap the killer and claw herself out of this hard-boiled murder case?

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Meet the author
Shari Randall is the author of Curses, Boiled Again! the first in the new Lobster Shack Mystery series from St. Martin’s Press. A native New Englander, former librarian, and military wife, she enjoys books, beaches, and barbecue. Shari still spreads the library love as Sisters In Crime’s Library Liaison to Book Club Central.

You can see what’s new with her at us.macmillan.com/author/sharirandall

All comments are welcomed.