Monday, February 5, 2018

Murder on the Rocks

Penelope Sutherland and her actress friend Arlena Madison are thrilled to heading to Vermont to film a movie about tennis great Helen Wills. Before they begin filming, Penelope, Arlena and current tennis player and consultant to the movie Nadia Westin meet at a local cafe. In Murder on the Rocks by Shawn Reilly Simmons,  the peaceful breakfast turns out to be anything but peaceful.

Two young men carrying hockey sticks burst into the cafe demanding money and proceed to threaten and injure several people, including Nadia. Penny worries Nadia's injury might impact the movie they are working on. She seems fine and they prepare to head to Vermont.

When they arrive at the house, they discover the two brother who are directing the movie. They are Thomas and Jeremiah Truegood and when Penny hears how they expect her to cater the movie, she realizes she is going to need some extra creativity. Jeremiah wants her to only use locally grown food, reusable plates and cutlery and no plastic water bottles. More difficult is the two different locations. Once the food has been eaten, Penny and her crew need to trundle the dirty dishes back to the house to wash. He'd like them to wash by hand, but Penny objects and uses the dishwasher.


Ever the optimist Penny finds a way to handle these unexpected complications, but Penny also seems to be struggling with the incident at the
cafe. She thinks she sees one of the men near the set, then she nearly faints when she notices someone else from the scene. Is it post traumatic stress syndrome or is Penny actually seeing the perpetrators?

When Nadia is injured in an car accident, Penny thinks there is more to these sightings and digs into Nadia's background. Unfortunately she finds some things that don't add up.

As in the other books in this series Penny's catering business moves from place to place and situation by situation, She handles all of it with grace and charm.  A fun series.


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