Betts and Gram are asked to put some guests up in their
cooking school when a tour bus comes to town and finds their
reservations are messed up. After all they are foodies and
what better place than a cooking school. Betts calls on her
brother for some help, he suggests putting them up instead
at a new bed and breakfast that is not yet open for visits.
Three of the food tour group go missing before their first
night is out. Betts and Jake will be drawn into the
investigation. Betts and her grandmother, Miz, see ghosts
and talk with them. In IF MASHED POTATOES COULD DANCE, we
meet Sally Swarthmore, one of Broken Rope's more infamous
killers. She is supposed to have killed both her parents.
As Betts investigates, one of the missing guests is found
dead and her attention is diverted. Sally is not willing to
let her be diverted. The two investigations will bring the
identity of the killers to light and the truth of the
Swarthmore deaths to light.
A unique series placed in a small town in Missouri with a
rather interesting history, I've really enjoyed the County
Cooking School books. This is the second in the series. I
love the main characters and their ability to see ghosts.
Miz has always been able to see and talk with ghosts.
Betts' has the same ability but hers are enhanced. She can
touch them in special circumstances. The history of Broken
Rope places an integral part in the stories since the ghosts
are all part of the town.
At Gram’s Country Cooking School in Broken Rope, Missouri, Isabelle “Betts” Winston and her grandmother share the secrets of delicious home-style recipes. But there’s one secret they keep from their classes—their ability to talk to ghosts from the town’s colorful past… Betts and Gram agree to help their friend Jake at Broken Rope’s Historical Society by accommodating some foodie tourists for the night and occupying them with cooking lessons. It couldn’t be worse timing when the pair encounter the ax-wielding ghost of Sally Swarthmore, one of Broken Rope’s legendary murderers, who pleads with Betts to help find her diary--a diary that could prove that Sally was really a victim, not a villain.
But they soon have a modern-day murder on their hands when one of the tourists turns up dead with a noose around his neck and two other tourists are nowhere to be found. Now Betts needs to put the cooking classes on the back burner to untangle two knotty mysteries and rope in a cold-blooded killer.