I once wrote and recorded an NPR piece on South Beach novels. I featured Caridad Pineiro, Barbara Parker and Brian Antoni; it was one of the most downloaded pieces on the NPR website. Why was it so popular? There’s something magical about the Florida vibe; the lush, tropical settings, the dizzying excitement of sultry nights, the glitzy hotels and resorts. And of course, an assortment of fascinating characters.
Roberta Isleib (writing as Lucy Burdette) has captured all the Florida magic in her entertaining mystery series, A Key West Food Critic Mysteries. I read the first book, AN APPETITE FOR MURDER and was hooked. The series has since snowballed into sixteen books, building on the exploits of Hayley Snow, the endearing heroine.
I sat down with Roberta to find out more about how she developed the series and her plans for the future.
The Key West Food Critic Mysteries capture the Key West vibe and I wonder how you came to choose that terrific setting. I felt like I was back there - the sights, the sounds, the excitement.
What you've described is exactly what appeals to many people about our island. When I was searching for something new to write about 15 years ago, I heard about an editor who wanted a series with a restaurant critic, set in a tropical place. It was a perfect fit for me--now the 16th installment of the Key West food critic series will be published in July!
Are there any elements that make Key West the ideal spot for a mystery series?
A great mystery setting becomes a character of its own - a place that readers yearn to visit. A place on the precipice of something happening. A place filled with secrets, and conflicts, and places to hide. Key West fits this perfectly, with its delicately balanced development, and its conflicts between old-time Conchs and newcomers, between the richest of the rich, the homeless, and the millions of partying visitors. Underneath its fashion-model looks, magical, whimsical, bizarro Key West has so many layers. And yet it’s also a small town where it’s hard to get away with too much. It seemed like the ideal setting for a series.
How did you create the character of Hayley Snow? She's a complex character, a shrewd food critic, a talented amateur sleuth and above all, resilient. You make it clear that she's found her niche in a tough, competitive field.
I began with the slightest sketch - a young woman who felt lost in her life though she knew she wanted to write about food. She came to Key West as so many people do because it's different from the rest of the world - funky, open-hearted, and casual. Hayley started out a bit self-absorbed, but she's grown up a lot, and readers and I celebrate her family and her friends. The biggest challenge for me is making sure her stake in solving the mystery is believable. I work hard on that, figuring out which of her treasured community might be in trouble and need her help!
Both of your cozy series are culinary mysteries and I have the feeling you are a talented cook.
I'm a good cook, but I really love to eat, and to read about and talk about food. Naturally my character does too! the challenge of every food writer whether writing fiction or nonfiction - how to write about the food but also make the piece about something bigger. I try to make sure that food in my mysteries reveals something deeper about the characters who are eating or discussing it. (At the end I include recipes because it seems only fair to provide them after readers have salivated for pages and pages!)
What's the challenge in creating a long running series? How do you keep the plots flowing and come up with new situations for Hayley Snow?
I'm so fortunate to live half-time in Key West, where these books are set. If you can't find a plot strand in our town, you're not looking very hard! Sometimes readers send me ideas. Here’s an example. As I was beginning to work on the 14th book in the series (A Poisonous Palate), I had an email from a fan. She said: “I recently finished your new book and enjoyed it very much. Especially the part where you talked about the hippies living down in the Keys in the past. I was one of those people that ended up down there in 1978.”
Are there challenges to writing a long-running series?
Absolutely! The growth of the characters is one of the reasons I love both writing and reading long-running mystery series - writing the same book over and over would feel so boring. I'm sure my attraction to writing a series is related to my first career as a clinical psychologist doing long-term psychotherapy. I love the process of slowly getting to know characters and unraveling their secrets, exactly as in therapy, although without the murders, of course. I see the detective's work as like that of a psychologist's in so many ways.
Where can readers catch up with you? Any book signings or conferences planned?
I know I'll have a big book launch party at RJ Julia Booksellers in July for A DELICIOUS DECIPTION - details to come. Otherwise, you can always find me online.
A Key West Food Critic Mystery Book #16
Mother-to-be Hayley Snow bites off more than she can chew in the sixteenth installment of Lucy Burdette’s USA Today bestselling Key West Food Critic mysteries.
When Sheriff’s Deputy Darcy Rogers asks Hayley for a small favor, she can’t say no. Nine months pregnant and temporarily benched from her food critic duties, Hayley’s itching for a distraction and eager to help. All she has to do is tag along while a young woman picks up her daughter from her father at Monroe County’s safe custody exchange location. Easy, right?
Wrong.
In the chaos of the Sheriff’s Office open house, the mother disappears. Then the father bolts, leaving Hayley with a terrified girl and the realization that something has gone terribly wrong. Hayley and Deputy Rogers head north up the Keys to search for answers.
When a body turns up, Hayley realizes this isn’t just a missing-persons case—it’s a race against time. With the little girl’s safety at risk, Hayley must trust her instincts—and her heart—to uncover the truth.
Mystery Cozy | Mystery Culinary | Mystery Woman Sleuth [ Crooked Lane Books, On Sale: July 14, 2026, e-Book, / ]
Clinical psychologist Lucy Burdette aka Roberta Isleib is the author of 24 novels, including the latest Key West mystery, A POISONOUS PALATE (Crooked Lane Books.) The 13th book in the series, A CLUE IN THE CRUMBS, was a USA Today bestseller and the Florida Book Award gold medal winner in popular fiction. Both the twelfth book in her Key West series, A DISH TO DIE FOR, and the tenth, THE KEY LIME CRIME, won the Florida Book Award’s bronze medal for popular fiction. Lucy Burdette’s Kitchen, a collection of recipes and stories from the Key West mysteries was published in July 2024. Lucy’s first women’s fiction title, THE INGREDIENTS OF HAPPINESS and her first thriller, UNSAFE HAVEN, have been published by Severn House. Her alter-ego, clinical psychologist Roberta Isleib, has also published eight mysteries including the golf lover’s mystery series and the advice column mysteries. Her books and stories have been short-listed for Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. She's a past president of Sisters in Crime, and currently president of the Friends of the Key West Library.
Mary Kennedy is a licensed psychologist and the author of the Talk Radio Mysteries and the Dream Club Mysteries. She’s written nearly fifty novels and has four million copies in print. Her first thirty-five books were young adult novels published by Scholastic nationwide and in several countries. She lives in the northeast with an eccentric cat. She’s tried unsuccessfully to psychoanalyze him but she remains optimistic.
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