Much Ado About Muffin

“Start with a spunky protagonist named Merry, mix in some delicious muffins, add a mysterious castle in upstate New York, and you've got the ingredients for a wonderful cozy mystery series.”

—Paige Shelton,
New York Times
bestselling author of
To Helvetica and Back

“Another fun read . . . There were plenty of twists to keep me turning those pages. The story is well-plotted and had me guessing whodunit right until the very end. The author has thoughtfully provided some yummy recipes.”

—MyShelf.com

“[A] real feast for mystery fans.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Mix the crazy cast of characters with humor, mystery, and romance and you have a delightful story that will keep you captivated for hours. It's a page turner!”

—Socrates' Book Reviews

“[A] great cozy with varied and interesting characters, a nice plot with a few twists, and a good main character who has some baggage to work through . . . Excellent—Loved it! Buy it now and put this author on your watch list.”

—Mysteries and My Musings

“Victoria Hamilton proves herself again as [a] master plotter . . . Merry Wynter is a delightful protagonist . . . [Hamilton's] characters are complex and most are likable . . . The plot had enough twists and curves to keep me challenged and entertained.”

—Open Book Society

Vintage Kitchen Mysteries

A DEADLY GRIND

BOWLED OVER

FREEZER I'LL SHOOT

NO MALLETS INTENDED

WHITE COLANDER CRIME

Merry Muffin Mysteries

BRAN NEW DEATH

MUFFIN BUT MURDER

DEATH OF AN ENGLISH MUFFIN

MUCH ADO ABOUT MUFFIN

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

MUCH ADO ABOUT MUFFIN

A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

Copyright © 2016 by Donna Lea Simpson.

Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

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.

eBook ISBN: 9780698406070

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2016

Cover art by Ben Perini.

Cover design by Colleen Reinhart.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

To all the English teachers out there; I know your job is difficult. I know some days you feel like you're not making a difference. Trust me, you are. Somewhere in your class is a shy girl, the introvert who never puts up her hand and who stammers through presentations. But she will “get” your enthusiasm for books; that spark will catch fire, and if you tell her just once that she has done a good job on a book report, or that she is “insightful,” she will remember it for the rest of her life. Thank you. And know this; you may just have created an
author.

H
ome. . . . why am I
not home?

I woke up with that thought and crawled out of bed, padding barefoot over to the window that looked out on straight rows of olive trees in the grove on the hillside in the distance, and the cork forest even more distant. Closer to the villa was the vineyard, long, cultivated rows of grapes that would become sweet white wine once harvested. The Paradiso family—my late husband's older brother, along with his grown-up daughter and son, were now all that was left—was diversifying under the wise guidance of Antonio, whom I call Tony, my late husband Miguel's older brother.

But in my mind and heart was another landscape, one from which I was separated by thousands of miles of ocean and land: Wynter Castle, my own property, near the tiny town of Autumn Vale, in upstate New York.

I had been gone from it for so long, well over two months now, lost in the magical, wealthy, and cultivated world of the Paradiso family. I was called to Málaga, a part of Andalusia,
Spain, by an urgent request from Tony. My former mother-in-law was dying, and he begged me to come and make peace with the woman who had disliked me intensely for the few years I knew her and was married to her favorite son. Tony hoped I would forgive her for her interference in my marriage to Miguel and let her die in harmony with the heavenly Father to whom she was devoted.

I went, we made our peace and talked long hours. I held her hand as she writhed in pain, refusing sedatives or painkillers, following the example of her hero, Pope John Paul II. Peace came with death while I was there. I found a solace in her passing that had evaded me with all the other deaths I had suffered through: my beloved grandmother and mother when I was just twenty-one, and then my husband, Miguel, eight years ago.

But Maria Paradiso had been gone over three weeks already. I had helped Tony through the funeral and various relatives visiting. Maria had a large extended family, most of whom descended upon us for a week. Tony's supercilious daughter and playboy son, on the other hand, fled as soon as they could after the funeral, leaving me with Tony, who mourned his mother with a depth of feeling I respected, even if I didn't share it.

But . . . it had been weeks. I had friends at home waiting. Why was I still ensconced in my luxurious room in the palatial Villa Paradiso?

More than one reason, but a biggie was that I had been asked a question, one I had not yet answered. Tony asked me to marry him. He's a good and generous man, smart, sophisticated, classically trained on the piano, very much like his younger brother, Miguel, but missing some of my late husband's fire and passion. He would be an ideal husband in so many ways. I wouldn't need to worry for the rest of my life. But I didn't love him and never would.

So I awoke longing for home. I had dreamed of strong
arms holding me, but in that dream when I opened my eyes it wasn't Tony's face I saw, nor even Miguel's, but that of Virgil Grace, sheriff of the county law enforcement unit.

I missed him. And I missed my friends, Pish in particular. I missed my daily routine, baking muffins for the villagers, talking to Shilo and Jack, visiting with Gogi and Hannah and Lizzie. I missed
home
, Wynter Castle and Autumn Vale. I had missed the whole summer, which I had not yet experienced in my inherited castle, hurried away by that urgent phone call the very day after Virgil and I had a romantic, delicious interlude in the long grass near the forest.

As suddenly as I had flown to Spain, I made the decision to leave. Of
course
I would not marry Tony. Why hadn't I answered immediately? I had closure with Miguel's fierce and irascible mother. She confessed that she had resented me taking Miguel away, even as she knew it wasn't me but his ambition as a fashion photographer that kept him in New York. I, in turn, admitted that I had resented her when Miguel left for six weeks to care for her while Tony was away. It was over, both sides forgiven.

I had been gone so long, but with time and distance comes perspective. I could see how I had struggled and worried about Wynter Castle, my inheritance, for ten long months, wondering whether I could ever make it pay more than a miserly sum. It had taxed me, as had continued battles with some of the folks in Autumn Vale and the bad luck that saw three deaths on my property.

Life at Villa Paradiso was so easy, carefree, pleasant. Tony's persistent good nature had shown me how trouble-free my life could be. Servants took care of everything, even cooking fabulous meals accompanied by equally fabulous wines. I spent evenings listening to Tony on the piano, or we took short jaunts to the coast to lie on the beach, then dance in a Euro-cool bar. I had been sucked into a vortex of ease.

Then, like a pailful of icy water, came the shock of a life not my own anymore: Tony started making assumptions, plans, arrangements. The day jaunts extended without my knowledge into a few days away here, a couple there. He made plans and then told me what we were doing. And with whom. Miguel had done the same, which wasn't so bad because I loved him with all my heart and I was young, eager for experience. He made it so much fun.

It was different with Tony, a kind of benevolent control, an assumption of his right to guide my life. It had become irritating, and yet every time I tried to talk to Tony, he changed the subject. So when I awoke thinking of Wynter Castle and Autumn Vale, I knew it was long past time to go home. I hated how lazy I'd become, how accustomed to having everything done for me. Tony laughed when I whined about it one day, and said I was very American to worry about my indolence.

But worst of all, I had, by tiny degrees, drifted away from my friends. During the first couple of weeks in Málaga I had made plans for when I returned, gotten involved even from afar, and missed home like crazy. That changed as Maria lingered halfway between Earth and heaven. Phone calls became shorter and less frequent.

As I stood staring out over the Paradiso olive groves and vineyard, I realized that I hadn't spoken to Pish for two weeks, and Virgil, not for three. Shilo, my best girlfriend in the world, a sweet, fragile gypsy child, wouldn't come to the phone last time I called her at her and her husband Jack's house in town. My cell phone had died a few weeks back, I couldn't replace it until I got home, and so no one called me at the villa because the serving staff couldn't—or wouldn't—speak English and so never took messages.

I whirled around from the window, threw on some clothes, and called a travel agent that minute, booking the first flight back to New York, and a commuter flight from
JFK to Rochester. Then I told Tony, expecting a big fight or a guilt trip. I got neither. I think he was relieved, and wondered if he'd proposed because he hadn't known what else to do with me, and had thought we may as well marry if I was going to stay. Tony is a very practical man, and I had been a malleable and content partner.

He kissed me good-bye—on the cheek, all very chaste, as had been all of our interactions—and had his driver take me to Costa del Sol Airport. I got the flight to New York, then caught the commuter flight to the Greater Rochester International Airport, arriving at about ten
AM
. Pish was to meet me at the baggage claim.

Except he didn't. When I retrieved my one bag I turned and there, standing with his fists clenched on his hips, arms akimbo, legs astride, was Virgil Grace, a scowl on his face. “Are you ready? Let's get out of
here.”