Pepper Reece first appeared in Assault and Pepper and one of the best ways to learn about a person is by asking questions, so let’s get to know Pepper.

What is your name?
Trick question right off the bat, huh? I’ve been Pepper Reece since I was a toddler, even if Pepper isn’t the name on my drivers’ license.

How old are you?
I always say I’m the poster child for “life begins at 40.” That math makes me just past 3.

What is your profession?
Well, the weekly paper calls me the Mistress of Spice. I own Seattle Spice Shop in the Pike Place Market. I never expected my life to fall apart when I hit 40, or to find solace in bay leaves, but it is the work I was born to do.

Do you have a significant other?
Ah, well. Time will tell, but I’m working on it!

What is his name?
Seriously? You want me to give away all my secrets?

What is his profession?
My lips are sealed.

Any children?
No, sadly. By the time my ex was ready, the batteries on my biological clock had run down. But that may have been for the best, given his behavior – and that’s all I’ll say about that.

Do you have any sibling(s)?
My younger brother Carl manages the city’s bond portfolio. My mother, still the hippie chick she was when she met my father, a Vietnam Vet, at a war protest, is still shaking her head over that one. But she’s proud of us both.

Do your parents live near you?
Was it Adam or Eve who first said the only constant is change? My parents left Seattle for Costa Rica a few years ago and they love it there, but now my mother is making noises about finding a place back here. And she’s dragging me along on the search. What will happen? With Chuck and Lena, you never know, so stay tuned!

Who is your best friend?
Kristen Hoffman Gardiner and I met before we were born, when our parents formed Grace House, a peace and justice community that operated out of a rundown mansion Kristen’s mother inherited on Seattle’s Capitol Hill. When I bought the Spice Shop, she started working for me part-time, and I am so grateful. It’s so much fun to work side by side with her.

Cats, dogs or other pets?
Arf, an Airedale Terrier who the vet says is about 4, came to live with me a couple of years ago. I take him with me sometimes when I’m investigating, and he makes a great ambassador.

What town do you live in?
I am a Seattle girl, born and raised.

Do you rent or own?
By amazing luck, I bought an unfinished loft in an early 20th century warehouse not far from the Market a few years ago. My eclectic urban home-sweet-home.

What is your favorite spot in your house?
The kitchen. I cook on a butcher block counter topping oak cabinets salvaged from an old schoolhouse out on the Olympic Peninsula. Upper cabinets with salvaged stained glass windows as doors hold my vintage Fiestaware. And in Julia Child style, pegboard covers the back wall and holds my vintage housewares collection.

Favorite meal?
The last one I ate.

Favorite dessert?
Salty Oat Cookies and Ginger Ice Cream (Recipes in Assault & Pepper.)

Favorite hobby?
What is a hobby? I work all the time! But I love going antiquing with Kristen.

Favorite color?
That glorious combination of pink, purple, and orange you see only in a sunset over Elliott Bay and the Olympic Mountains

Favorite author?
Ellis Peters, for her Brother Cadfael series.

Favorite vacation spot?
What is a vacation? Joke! Anywhere in the San Juan Islands, in Puget Sound.

Favorite sports team?
The Seattle Mariners

Movies or Broadway?
Movies. I get together every Tuesday with my girlfriends to watch a movie. Although I admit that some weeks, the movie is an excuse to eat and talk. As if we actually need an excuse!

Are you a morning or a night person?
Neither one, really. I worked HR in a law firm for years, so I’m used to working business hours. Ahh. Sometimes I miss business hours. But I LOVE running the Spice Shop.

Amateur sleuth or professional?
Amateur. Meaning that I do it for love, rather than do it ineptly – despite what my police officer ex might say. (Though I’m pretty sure he’s come to appreciate my success, even if he doesn’t always appreciate the risks I take. He’s really not a bad guy.)

Whom do you work with when sleuthing?
Solo, mostly. Besides Arf.

In a few sentences, what is a typical day in your life like?
I’ll tell you, the words “typical” and “Pike Place Market” are rarely uttered in the same sentence! Most days, I’m here by 8:30 to open at 10, close at 6:00, then head home, just a few blocks away – unless I stay to manage the paperwork, or head down to the certified kitchen space we rent to mix up our blends or fill our commercial orders. In between, I sell spice, work with customers and my staff, create new blends, work on sample recipes, visit other merchants, and enjoy the amazing vibrance of the oldest continuously operated public market in the country, which opened in 1907. I may pop out to make a delivery or visit a restaurant to pitch our wares to the chef. But sometimes – with increasing frequency, it seems – I get involved when bad things happen. When a homeless man dies on my doorstep, or a chef-client is killed amid the construction zone of her new restaurant. When a family friend thought long dead returns, or a friend from yoga class returns to her shop to find her employee stabbed to death. When ghosts haunt a friend. Then I am as much a terrier as my sweet dog, taking the proverbial bit in my teeth and working every angle I can to find the culprit and help my friends. I ask myself “What would Cadfael do?” And I’m pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

Meanwhile, come on down to the Market and spice up your life!

You can read about Pepper in Chai Another Day, the fourth book in the “Spice Shop” cozy mystery series, released June 11, 2019.

Seattle Spice Shop owner Pepper Reece probes murder while juggling a troubled employee, her mother’s house hunt, and a fisherman who’s set his hook for her.

As owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece is always on the go. Between conjuring up new spice blends and serving iced spice tea to customers looking to beat the summer heat, she finally takes a break for a massage. But the Zen moment is shattered when she overhears an argument in her friend Aimee’s vintage home decor shop that ends in murder.

Wracked by guilt over her failure to intervene, Pepper investigates, only to discover a web of deadly connections that could ensnare a friend – and Pepper herself.

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About the author
Leslie Budewitz blends her passion for food, great mysteries, and the Northwest in the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries, set in Jewel Bay, Montana, and the Seattle Spice Shop Mysteries. Death al Dente, the first Village mystery, won the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel. New York Times bestseller Laura Childs says “Small town charm and big time chills.” The 2015-16 president of Sisters in Crime, Leslie lives in NW Montana with her husband, a singer-songwriter and doctor of natural medicine, and their gray tuxedo cat, an avid birdwatcher.

All comments are welcomed.