Filled to Death

The morning after food critic Randall Fitch publicly humiliated Tessa Quinn's wild-blueberry hand pies in front of half of Saltwick Cove, someone killed him with her filling.

Tessa found out the way most people find out bad news in a small Maine town — standing at her own bakery counter, flour still on her hands, while the sheriff's deputy ordered a coffee he didn't drink.

The Rolling Pin has survived slow winters, a leaking roof, and every opinion Randall Fitch ever published. What it can't survive is being linked to a poisoning at the Blueberry Festival — the single weekend each summer that keeps half the businesses on the cove solvent. And what Tessa can't survive is watching her best friend Dot get arrested for something she didn't do.

Dot argued with Fitch the night before he died. Loudly. In front of witnesses who are now very eager to remember every word. The sheriff has a suspect he likes, a timeline that works, and no particular interest in looking further.

Tessa has a bakery to run, a festival already unraveling around her, and the uncomfortable knowledge that whoever used her recipe knew exactly what they were doing — and exactly where to find it.

The killer is still in Saltwick Cove. Still buying coffee. Still smiling at people they know.

And the longer Tessa waits, the more settled the wrong answer becomes.