Daisy Bateman

Newsletter: Cheesy Plots with Daisy Bateman Vol. 2

THE NEWS

New Book!

That’s right, it’s my second-ever newsletter and we’re getting right to the news part! As some of you may have seen elsewhere, the second book in the Marketplace Mysteries series, has a release date (3/15/2022), a cover (see below), and is available for preorder.

It even has a synopsis!

It’s autumn on the Sonoma Coast, and Claudia Simcoe is sure that the gourmet harvest dinner being held at her artisan marketplace will wipe away any memories of the unpleasantness last summer. But then the newly installed video surveillance system shows local lawyer Clark Gowan removing something from a hidden compartment in the marketplace walls . . . and Claudia’s visit to his office the next day reveals that he’s dead, shot with one of his own vintage guns.

The town’s new no-nonsense police chief wants to know about the compartment, but she’s more interested in the fact that Julie Muller, famed cheesemaker and one of Claudia’s tenants, broke in to Gowan’s office the night before he was killed. Concerned for her friend, and also about the revelation that Gowan, who was involved in the sale of the marketplace building, was not entirely on the up and up, Claudia is determined to learn more.

The building’s Prohibition-era history offers some clues, and the victim’s illegal legal work turns out to have affected a number of people in town, from Julie to the farm museum he cheated out of a significant amount of land. Meanwhile, Claudia still has a marketplace to run, and she is more confused than anyone when it comes to her relationship, or lack-thereof, with her craft-beer-making neighbor.

Still, Claudia thinks she’s getting a hand on this investigating thing, until another gruesome death, secrets from her building’s past, and a low-speed tractor chase make her wonder if she’s really ready to reap what she’s sown.

Cool, right?

THE PLOTS

Wolves of Wall Street (Horror)
If you get caught between the moon and New York City. . . You had better hope that moon isn’t full, and you’re not in the Financial District. The investment bankers at Fox & Chaney have a reputation as predators, earned in ways most people never realize. That is, until a deal goes wrong and one of the firm’s principals snaps his lead, literally. It’s midnight and Lower Manhattan is a hunting ground, where a newly-hired security guard and an Ellis Island tour guide with a mysterious heritage are the only people with a chance of stopping the bloodshed.
(It’s a metaphor.)

The Cat Looked Back (Cozy Noir)
Having just killed his landlord for a hidden stash of money, Leo Sharpe realizes there was a witness to his crime: the neighbor’s cat, sitting the back window. Despite successfully disposing of the body and escaping from suspicion, he keeps seeing the cat watching him with what seems like a malicious expression. Convinced the cat will somehow give him away, Leo sets out on an increasingly unhinged mission to kill the cat, eventually causing his crime to be exposed. The cat is fine.

The Victorian Bookshop Mysteries (Historical Mystery Series)
It’s 1868, and Eliza Dawson has just broken off her engagement for the last time. Unwilling to accept the options available to her at her family home in Bath, she travels to London and gets a job at a small but eccentric bookstore. She finds a home there, despite the moody owner and occasionally demanding patrons, but her new life is disturbed by a series of mysteries related to the popular books of the day. (The Moonstone (1868), Little Women (1869), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), etc.)

THE CHEESE

Burrata.

That should be all I have to say, and frankly, this newsletter is already long enough. But, in case you aren’t convinced, allow me to elaborate. Burrata is what mozzarella wishes it had the nerve to be, less of a cheese than an excuse to eat cream with a fork. It’s rich, fun, thoroughly unserious, and goes well with everything that makes this time of year great. So, get yourself some tomatoes (or peaches!), basil, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar and enjoy the fact that summer is with us just a little bit longer.

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