My name is Samantha Barnes. Sam to my friends. I stand six feet one and a half inches in my stocking feet, six two and a half in my chef’s clogs. But let’s be honest. I’m Big Bird tall, not model tall. Nor am I a professional cook. Any more. At least not since a video of little chef’s-knife fencing match with my soon-to-be ex went viral. You are talking to the world’s most unhappy YouTube star.

Before I moved to New York to do the chef thing, I’d lived my whole life in Fair Harbor, Cape Cod, population 6,798. Actually, 6,797. Now. After the video debacle, I was broke and jobless, so when I inherited my Aunt Ida’s house on the Cape and landed a job writing restaurant reviews for the local paper, I went home. The common wisdom is that Cape Cod is paradise. Paradise? Hah. In paradise would a food critic find a body on her very first assignment?

And if you still don’t believe it, spend some time with me on my first day back in “paradise”:

Miles slows the truck. “Do you remember where the house actually is?” he asks.

I shake my head. “I haven’t been there in years. I’ll put it into Waze.” Within seconds an annoyingly cheerful virtual woman is saying, “Let’s get going!”

Eventually, we pull into a sad, dilapidated excuse for a driveway that leads to Aunt Ida’s sad, dilapidated excuse for a house.

This makes the virtual woman very happy.

“You,” she announces cheerfully, “have arrived at your destination!”

Miles and I climbed out of the truck and survey my destination. It is, if anything, even more bedraggled than I remember.

“What a pile of doo doo,” Miles says. Or words to that effect.

“Not really,” a bright voice responds. “It just needs some love.”

The bright voice, it turns out, belongs to a 60-ish woman with electric blue eyes and a halo of curly silver hair who has materialized rather alarmingly at our side like a genie out of a bottle.

“Helene!” Miles says. “Where on earth did you spring from?”

“I live next door, you big dope,” the woman replies, smacking him on the arm with a hand that appears to have a ring on every finger.

Miles remembers his manners.

“Helene, this is Samantha Barnes, the new owner of this charming property. Sam, this is Helene Greenberg, your neighbor. She’s the town’s new librarian.”

Really? I want to say. Because you look like no librarian I ever met before.

“How do you do?” I say instead.

“I’m great,” Helene says. “And I’m very happy to meet you. Miles has told me so much about you.”

Oh, god, really? What exactly?

“And I’ve got a surprise for you,” Helene continues.

Oh dear.

Helene puts two fingers to her mouth and lets out an ear-splitting whistle. A blur of fur comes flying around the corner of the house. I have a confused impression of a wet nose and large pink tongue in my face and enormous muddy paws on my chest.

I had dogs as a kid. I know how this is supposed to work.

“Down!” I shout. Nothing. The creature continues to lick me to death.

“Down!” Miles shouts, also to no avail.

“Down, Diogi,” Helene says calmly, holding up a dog treat that has miraculously appeared in her hand.

In a nanosecond, the beast turns his attention to Helene and stands gazing fixedly at the dog treat.

In this brief moment of calm, which I suspect is only the eye of the storm, I can see he is your typical Cape Cod mutt, part yellow lab, part whatever. This one is remarkable in no way except for his size. He is ginormous.

“You’ll have to forgive his manners,” Helene says. “He’s still just a puppy,”

“You mean he’s going to get bigger?” I yelp.

“Oh yes,” Helene says. “He’s still just a baby. But he’s a fast learner.”

She hands me a dog treat. “Tell him to sit. Diogi will do anything for a treat.” She pronounces the name dee-OH-gee.

“Thank you,” I say, taking the treat gingerly just in case the dog gets over-excited and jumps me again. “That’s an . . . unusual . . . name.”

“It’s a joke,” Helene says, blue eyes dancing. “Dee, oh, gee. D, O, G. Get it? Dog! D, O, G!” She laughs delightedly as if hearing the joke for the first time. “It’s spelled D, I, O, G, I.”

I have to laugh, too. I hold the treat up and say “Sit, Diogi” in my firmest voice.

Diogi ignores the command, instead leaning against my leg with all his considerable weight. I give him the treat anyway.

“I think your dog needs some more training,” I say to Helene.

“Oh, he’s not my dog.”

“Whose dog is he?” I ask.

“Why, he’s yours, Sam,” Helene says, as if the answer is obvious. “Diogi comes with the house.”

Paradise? Hah. I rest my case.

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A Side of Murder, A Cape Cod Foodie Mystery #1
Genre: Cozy
Release: February 2021
Purchase Link

Samantha Barnes was always a foodie. And when the CIA (that’s the Culinary Institute of America) came calling, she happily traded in Cape Cod for the Big Apple. But then the rising young chef’s clash with another chef (her ex!) boils over and goes viral. So when Sam inherits a house on the Cape and lands a job writing restaurant reviews, it seems like the perfect pairing. What could go wrong? Well, as it turns out, a lot.

The dilapidated house comes with an enormous puppy. Her new boss is, well, bossy. And the town’s harbor master is none other than her first love. Nonetheless, Sam’s looking forward to reviewing the Bayview Grill—and indeed the seafood chowder is divine. But the body in the pond outside the eatery was not on the menu. Sam is certain this is murder. But as she begins to stir the pot, is she creating a recipe for her own untimely demise?

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Meet the Author
Amy Pershing is a lifelong mystery lover and wordsmith. She was an editor, a restaurant reviewer and a journalist before leading employee communications at a global bank. A few years ago (with the final college tuition bill paid), she waved goodbye to Wall Street to write full time (and spend more time sailing on the Cape!). A Side of Murder, the first of the Cape Cod Foodie mysteries, is her debut novel. You can learn more about Amy at amypershingauthor.com and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.

All comments are welcomed.