Hi, I’m Henrietta James, only everybody calls me Henny. I hate Henrietta. My mother gave my sisters decent names—Beth and Jenna—but I guess because I was first, she was bewildered

I really can’t talk but a minute. Irene Foxglove, my favorite diva chef, is back from France. Patrick, my wonderful Patrick, and I are supposed to get married in less than a week, Irene found cocaine in her purse and thought it was talcum powder, and she was accused of murder the second day she was in Chicago. Once again, Irene brings murder and mayhem to those around her, and now someone wants to kill her to get the cocaine she doesn’t have. I keep seeing my wedding, the biggest day of my life, fading into the background.

Let me explain. I am a TV cook—can’t call myself a chef because I have no formal training. That never stopped Irene though. She claimed Cordon Bleu training when all she’d done is cook in some French kitchens while an au pair and take a class in Chicago. I was her gofer on her TV show until she left to return to France. And then the TV station gave me my own show, “Recipes from My Mom’s Kitchen.” Irene cooks French; I cook down-home food from my Texas roots. But in the year we were together, I became fond of Irene, difficult as she was, and I guess she was fond enough of me that she felt the wedding was hers to cater. How do I tell her the Palmer House chef is catering it? May not be a problem if she’s in jail. Stop that, Henny!

I have my work cut out for me—find out who killed the cocaine courier, convince Irene to listen to Detective Schmidt who is trying to keep her safe, try to visit with my family who came to town, and prepare to meet Patrick’s family who disapprove of me, sight unseen. We’ve been together almost two years, and I’ve not met them. That is an ominous sign to me. Stop that, Henny.

Patrick centers me. Whereas I am scattered and prone to blurt our things better left unsaid, he is steady and calm. He has made me a better person, but today he’s off to Winnetka because his best childhood friend was hit by a car and is near death—or so his mother says. So I’m on my own, but I find myself dealing with Irene’s whims while trying to entertain my family. They’ve met, and it didn’t go well. Dad is always quiet and easy, and Beth and Jenna were fascinated by Irene’s dramatic stories about her café in France, but she rubbed Mom the wrong way with a comment about how she taught me to cook. Mom replied, with some acerbity, that I’d been cooking since I was seven or eight.

Oh, and today Irene and I are taping a show together, just like old times. She’ll call me Henrietta, forget that it’s my show and not hers, and order me around. We’re making lobster thermidor because that’s what I chose for the wedding supper. She really frowned when she heard the rehearsal dinner would feature barbecue, beans, and potato salad. Peasant food!

Patrick says I can pull this off. He says we’re not cancelling the wedding. He says it will be everything I dream of—if I can keep my mouth shut and my temper in control. A hard assignment.

Irene In Danger, An Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery #2
Genre: Cozy
Release: October 2021
Purchase Link

Want a French recipe? Irene will teach you to make salad niçoise. Want murder and mayhem? Irene seems to attract both. With one week until her wedding, Henny James is convinced Irene’s arrival from France will ruin the biggest day of her life. One week to save Irene from the trouble she brings with her and save the wedding.

Recipes included.

About the author
After an award-winning career writing historical fiction about women of the American West, Judy Alter turned her attention to cozy mysteries. She is the author of three series: Kelly O’Connell Mysteries, Blue Plate Café Mysteries, and Oak Grove Mysteries. Irene in Danger is the second book in the Irene in Chicago Culinary Mystery series. Find her and a list of her books at judyalter.com.

Although she has lived in Texas over fifty years, Judy is a native of Chicago. With the Irene mysteries, she returns to the Hyde Park neighborhood where she grew up and to the city she still loves. A member of several professional writing groups, she is the mother of four and proud grandmother of seven. She and her dog, Sophie, live in a cottage in Fort Worth.

All comments are welcomed.