I’m not big on change. I’m big on a full-bodied Oregon Cabernet Franc, and on the rich syrahs and grenaches grown in the Horse Heaven Hills in southeast Washington. I’m big on a spicy French Viognier, with notes of apricot, peach and a hint of honeysuckle that will make your mouth water.

You want a good pour for your holiday party, a wine to make your new sweetheart come back for more after that first home-cooked meal, or a special treat for your little old self, you come see me, Vinny Delgado, the Wine Merchant. I’ve been running the same shop in the same space on Upper Post Alley in Pike Place Market in Seattle for more years than I care to count.

But change is coming. And I welcome it.

Vinny, you’re saying, you been sampling the goods again. I hear that, now and then, when I say something particularly insightful, because of my business. I indulge, I admit. I have to know what I’m selling. But I never over-indulge, and I never sell a bad bottle.

On a typical day—well, my pal Pepper Reece at the Spice Shop would say there is no typical in the Market, and she’s right, as usual. Most days, I get here about 9:30, check the place over, and start unpacking the day’s deliveries. I turn on the sign—a wine bottle pouring the word OPEN into a glass—about ten, but to tell you the truth, customers don’t usually find me until a bit later in the day. Wine isn’t the first thing on their minds first thing in the morning, though of course, it’s pretty much always on my mind. I love wine, baseball, and my azaleas. Got the prettiest apricot-blush azalea—it’s the exact same color as my favorite rosé.

By noon, though, trade is going pretty good and builds steadily right up to closing. That’s typically—’scuse me, often—when Pepper pops in, looking for a bottle of vino to serve with whatever dish she’s spicing up for that fisherman of hers, Nate Seward. She is a fine catch, and he has been good for her. That ex of hers, Tag, is a helluva cop, and we’re darned lucky to have him patrolling the Market, but as a husband, he was a no-goodnik, especially for a lively gal like Pepper.

But it’s Christmas. First Christmas since—well, I don’t need to tell you. And there’s nothing like Christmas in the Market. People are celebrating being alive and healthy and back together again, though a few of my customers have had losses in their lives, terrible losses, and I listen when they talk. People do pour their hearts out to their wine merchants, strange as it might seem. Anyway, we’re counting on a big holiday season.

I say “we” because I have finally made a big change here. Pepper used to work HR, hiring and firing people, and she’s been telling me for ages to hire someone. Even offered to help. Well, I have found the perfect employee all on my own. The perfect partner. Young woman named Beth Yardley. Grew up in the wine business, then went off and went to culinary school, but cooking professionally isn’t in her plans. And boy, does that girl have plans to match her nose and her talent. (Nose is a wine term, for a sensitive palate, and she’s got one.) She is the future of the shop, I am convinced.

And bonus of bonuses, she loves putting on the dog for the holidays, just like I do. The theme in the Market this year is “A Dickens of a Christmas,” and I have found me a couple of outfits straight out of central casting’s costume shop. Coats with velvet collars and tails. Ascots. Top hats.

Come on down and celebrate the season in Pike Place Market. We’re running a special on champagne right up until closing on New Year’s Eve. You’ll find exactly the wine you’re looking for here at the Wine Merchant, and that will never change.

I promise you, we are going to have the Merriest Old Christmas you have ever seen. Or I’ll eat my top hat.

Peppermint Barked, A Spice Shop Mystery #6
Genre: Cozy
Release: July 2022
Purchase Link

A Dickens of a Christmas turns deadly. . .

As the holiday season lights up Seattle’s famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece’s beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition—a peppermint bark-off—along with Victorian costumes for this year’s Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend’s brother for the first time.

But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny’s wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper’s mind. Who would want to hurt Beth? Or were they looking for Vinny instead?

The vicious attack upsets everyone at Pike Place, but none more than Pepper’s own employee, Matt Kemp. At first, Pepper is baffled by his reaction, but his clandestine connection to Beth could hold the key to the assailant’s motive. Or perhaps it’s Vinny’s ex-wife who knows more than she’s letting on . . . and what about the mysterious top-hatted man with whom Pepper saw Beth arguing that morning?

As the secrets of the market come to light, long-held grudges, family ties, and hidden plans only further obscure the truth. Is it a ghost of the past rattling its chains, or a contemporary Scrooge with more earthly motives? As Pepper chases down a killer, someone is chasing her, and in the end, the storied market itself may hold the final, deadly clue.

A cozy holiday mystery full of culinary delights and a rich cast of characters, the sixth installment in the Spice Shop Mystery series will keep you turning the page . . . and reaching for another piece of peppermint bark.

About the author
Leslie Budewitz is a three-time Agatha Award winner and the best-selling author of the Spice Shop mysteries, set in Seattle, and Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, inspired by Bigfork, Montana, where she lives. Next up: Peppermint Barked (July 2022). As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense, beginning with Bitterroot Lake and continuing with Blind Faith (October 2022). Leslie is a board member of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime.

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