Five Belles Too Many

by Debra H. Goldstein

Overview

In the fifth Sarah Blair Mystery set in Alabama and featuring the culinary-challenged sleuth Sarah Blair, things get a little too real when a murderer crashes a reality competition for brides...

Sometimes Sarah’s mother, Maybelle, can be higher maintenance than her Siamese cat RahRah. Maybelle and her friend, Mr. George Rogers, have been chosen to be one of five couples competing for a small-town “perfect” wedding and dream honeymoon on a Southern Belles reality show—and guess who has to be chaperone. Even more vexing, the producers have decided to put up the crew and participants at the restaurant/bed and breakfast owned by Sarah’s nemesis Jane Clark.

But when someone turns up dead with Jane kneeling by the body with blood on her hands, she goes from being Sarah’s chief rival to the police’s chief suspect. Neither Sarah nor her twin, Chef Emily Johnson, can stand Jane—still, they don’t think she’s a murderer. The producers vow the show must go on, but to protect their mother and the other contestants, Sarah vows to find the true killer before someone else gets eliminated...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496732231
Publisher:	Kensington
Publication date:	06/28/2022
Series:	Sarah Blair Series , #5
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	389,698
Product dimensions:	4.70(w) x 7.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Debra H. Goldstein is the author of the Sarah Blair Mysteries, as well as Should Have Played Poker and IPPY Award-winning Maze in Blue. Her short stories, including Anthony and Agatha-nominated The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place, have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies. An active Birmingham, Alabama civic volunteer, Debra also serves on the national boards of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and is president of SEMWA and past president of SinC’s Guppy Chapter. Visit DebraHGoldstein.com to learn more.

Editorial Reviews

2022-03-30
An Alabama reality show turns deadly.

Sarah Blair is pleased that Southwind, the restaurant she co-owns with twin sister Emily, will be prominently featured in the Southern Belle Perfect Wedding Competition that’s being filmed in their hometown of Wheaton. Rival restaurateur Jane Clark is not so pleased, because every meal the production company holds at Southwind is one less meal for Jane’s Place, her own eatery. But Jane’s temper tantrum at hearing that she won’t be hosting the show’s nightly dinners is just one of the juicy moments that director Alan Perrault and his assistant, Sam Tolliver, cook up to delight viewers, moments that persuade Sarah that what’s being filmed is anything but reality. Still, much as the crew tries to cover up the little glitches that would reveal just how much the showrunners are manipulating the narrative—like the fact that the filming schedule requires them to know in advance the order in which couples with be voted off the show days later, allegedly determined by a real-time audience vote—they can’t hide murder. The death of Perrault in the kitchen of Jane’s Place leads to major rewrites. And one thing that gets rewritten big time is Jane and Sarah’s history. Although still smarting that Jane broke up her marriage, Sarah can’t bear to see someone so obviously innocent turn into the police chief’s main suspect. Not only does Sarah persuade attorney Harlan Endicott to represent Jane, but she puts herself in the path of danger while trying to unmask the real killer.

The clash between real life and reality TV strains the reader’s credulity.

Kirkus Reviews