Kylie Logan | Why Las Vegas?

It’s a question I get a lot when readers hear that DEATH BY DEVIL'S BREATH, book #2 of my Chili Cook-Off mystery series is set in Sin City.

Why Las Vegas?

If you’ve been there, you know the answer. If you haven’t been there, let me ask you to suspend your disbelief for a moment and picture a city where wild isn’t wild enough, over-the-top is never quite high enough and wacky is waiting around every corner.

I say this with all due respect. I’ve been to Vegas four times, but not as a gambler (I get bored way too fast). In fact, each of my visits to Vegas has involved meeting with a brainstorming group, writers who’ve gotten together to talk about story ideas, plot points, characters and career possibilities.

What better place to plan a fictional world and everything that happens in it than the city where roller coasters sit on top of high-rise buildings, adults can pay money to drive race cars around a track, and every performer has the glint of a dream in his eyes?

Vegas . . . all glitz and glamor. At least on the surface.

Of course as a mystery writer, I’m more interested in what happens under the surface of any story. It’s the backstory and the trickery that make a mystery interesting. And to me, that’s really what Vegas is all about.

That’s why I sent the Chili Showdown there. Beginning with last year’s CHILI CON CARNAGE, I’ve written about the Showdown, which hosts chili cook-offs throughout the country. It’s a group of traveling vendors who, as my heroine, Maxie Pierce, has said, are "a lot like carnies only without the missing teeth and the creepiness." Showdown vendors sell everything from chili-inspired kitchen dishcloths to beans and hot sauces. Maxie and her half-sister, Sylvia, have taken over their father’s food truck, the Texas Jack Pierce Hot-Cha Chili Seasoning Palace, and they sell peppers and spice mixes. Not incidentally, Maxie’s also looking for Jack who disappeared somewhere back in Abilene and hasn’t been heard from since.

It’s not a bad life. Sylvia handles the day-to-day operations of the business and Maxie dresses in a gigantic chili costume (that includes fishnet stockings and stilettoes–how very Vegas-like!) so she can dance in front of the stand and attract customers.

Too bad she’s also attracting bad luck in the way of murders.

In CHILI CON CARNAGE, it was Roberto, a Showdown roadies, who was killed. And now, in DEATH BY DEVIL'S BREATH, it’s one of the celebrity judges who’s at the Showdown to judge a contest of the hottest chili on the planet.

Who wanted Dickie Dunkin dead?

It might be easier to ask who didn’t! The comedian was acerbic, nasty, and he also just happened to be a blackmailer. There are plenty of suspects, and Maxie’s got her hands full.

The hottest chili in the universe and the hottest city on the planet–it’s a sure bet that this is one match made in chili heaven!