Death, Lies and Apple Pies — Valerie S. Malmont

FIRST PRIZE: MURDER

Tori Miracle has her cats, her sexiest nightgown, and the highest hopes a jaded New Yorker dares have as she sets off for Lickin Creek, Pennsylvania. Chosen as a celebrity judge of the annual Old Fashioned Apple Butter Festival, Tori is really looking forward to spending quality time with police chief Garnet Gochenauer. Then the dying begins.

The first victim was poisoned. Or so Tori is told by an eccentric herbalist who lives outside of town. When Tori discovers the next body, skeletons start coming out of closets. Now the good house-wives of Lickin Creek are readying their recipes and Tori is sleeping with her cats in her coziest nightwear. Because she and her chief of police aren't looking for a night of passion anymore, they're looking for a killer . . . the one who has a recipe for murder--and a Miracle on his mind. . . .