Amazon Cricket McRae Category:  Mystery/Suspense Publisher: Midnight Ink ISBN-10:  0738711225 Pages: 240 Copyright: 2008 ISBN-13: 9780738711225 Second in the Home Crafting Mystery Series featuring Sophie Mae Reynolds A reputation as a small town busybody sleuth. A gum-cracking boss who keeps calling her “babe.” Now a suicidal phone stalker? Great. After solving the messy mystery of her neighbor-hood handyman’s lye-induced death, thirty-something Sophie Mae Reynolds makes preserves by day and answers phones at a crisis center by night. What better way to keep a low profile? But on her very first night, Sophie Mae gets a call from a man who is threatening suicide . . . and her. Over-hearing the caller’s irate outbursts, her morally-bankrupt boss Philip Heaven severs the line. As harassing calls to her home increase, Philip comes down with a deadly case of food poisoning. And his eerie last words keep ringing in Sophie Mae’s ears: “Threat. Meant it.” Now stirring up the town with talk of murder-by-preserves, Sophie Mae and her hunky boyfriend Detective Ambrose are on a blood-red trail of rancid beets to find and stop the crafty killer.

Booklist
This is the second outing for Sophie Mae Reynolds in McRae’s Home Crafting series, set in small-town
Washington State. After helping to solve the murder of her handyman in Lye in Wait (2007), Sophie Mae
assumes she can go back to her normal occupation of making soap, bath salts, lip-balm lotion bars,
saltea bags, air fresheners, wine jelly, pickles, and preserves—and perhaps even find time to volunteer at a
crisis center. The next thing she knows, her boss at Heaven House is dead from food poisoning, and
Sophie Mae is being stalked. To make matters worse, her boyfriend, detective Barr Ambrose, is also a
victim of the food poisoning, fortunately not fatal in his case. McRae writes about characters that we really
care about, and her plot is thoroughly credible. Like many popular cooking mystery series, the books also
include recipes. Sophie Mae and her friends deserve many more adventures.
— Judy Coon

Fort Collins Coloradoan
Story line: This is the second in the Home Crafting Series featuring Sophie Mae Reynolds, a character whose exploits we look forward to enjoying once again.

This volume continues to unfold Sophie Mae's deepening character and carries the reader along with a healthy dose of suspense.

McRae's concise, conversational style will make you feel like you're in the center of conversation with your friends. The twists in the plot keep the storyline interesting to the very end.

Although Sophie Mae is a boutique soap maker who breaks out of the calico image of crafters, there are enough scenes and recipes to make us want to go home and create something. Yummy comes to mind, and murder by preserves promises your enjoyment of McRae's humor.

Available: All booksellers

--Nancy Hansford