Oh no! This is the very last installment of one of my favorite culinary cozy mystery series. It’s a wonderful way to see out the books, though, with a series of beautiful weddings promising clear skies and bright horizons to all of our beloved characters once the final page is turned.

But first, there’s a murder to deal with. Julia Snowden is the co-owner of the Snowden Family Clambake and is a little nervous about starting the new season on Morrow Island with a wedding. This isn’t just any ceremony that she’s overseeing; these are the nuptials of two of her best friends: ceramic artist Zoey Butterfield and police officer Jamie Dawes. As maid of honor, she wants everything to be perfect for the marrying couple on their special day.

The first indication that the weekend won’t go off complication-free is a storm forecast for the night of the rehearsal dinner on the evening before the wedding itself. The dinner is a traditional island clambake, with the guests being transported to and from Busman’s Harbor. Only a select few members of the wedding party and the clambake company are expected to stay on the island afterward.

Julia is already keeping one eye on the weather when she notices a dinner guest who doesn’t seem to be attached to either side of the wedding. Since interrogating and potentially getting rid of a wedding crasher would be far more disruptive than just letting his presence slide, Julia decides to let him socialize–even if he does seem to be having almost as many disagreeable conversations as pleasant ones with the actual guests. Alas that the very worst happens, and the interloper suddenly slides from his picnic bench, the seeming victim of a serious allergic reaction.

Julia and her friends try to save him, but he’s too far gone. Discreetly, they move his corpse away from the rest of the guests, whom they have to start shepherding back to the mainland quickly with the storm coming. As Julia and her boyfriend, Maine State Police Detective Tom Flynn, begin piecing together what happened to the victim by questioning the people remaining on Morrow Island, they slowly uncover his twisted history with far too many members of the wedding party. Once it becomes clear that the dead man was actually murdered, Julia and Tom will do everything possible to catch the killer so that the best day of Zoey and Jamie’s life so far can still proceed (mostly) as planned.

As a fan of the Maine Clambake mysteries–I even have a framed map of Busman’s Harbor on my wall!–I’m so sad to see this series go. I can definitely agree with Barbara Ross’s reasoning in the afterword to this novel though, and I am very much looking forward to reading whatever she writes next. Julia deserves a break from crime-solving as well as her happily ever after.

There were five delicious recipes included in the back of the book, all from dishes served over the wedding weekend. Since my kids are home from school for the summer and pestering me constantly for entertainment, I decided to try making these kid-friendly treats with them.

Chocolate-Covered Toffee Squares

Ingredients

For the base

1 cup butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1 egg yolk, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

½ teaspoon salt

For the top

12 ounces high-quality chocolate (milk or dark, as you prefer)

1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts, as you prefer; these can also be left out)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350-degrees

Mix cookie ingredients together using a food processor or mixer.

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Spread the cookie dough thinly across the parchment paper; it should be about a quarter inch thick.

Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.

While baking, melt the chocolate in a double boiler.

When the cookies come out of the oven, spread the melted chocolate across the top with a rubber spatula. Sprinkle with the chopped nuts.

Do not cut into squares until the cookies and the chocolate are completely cool. Cut into any size you like.

These were so easy to make that my 13-year-old is fairly confident he could bake them on his own next time! I don’t think he was quite paying attention when I was separating the egg yolk from the white, but a little training will help him learn quickly enough, and I’m entirely confident in his abilities otherwise.

More importantly, these tasted amazing! I wouldn’t call them toffee squares so much as toffee cookies, especially if you wind up accidentally making some of them rectangles like I did. Regardless, they were perfect, melt-in-your-mouth, chocolate-covered treats. I do recommend using a pizza cutter to make the cutting part easier, and I think that these tasted absolutely amazing without nuts–though your preferences may differ, of course.

Next week, we come south to my neck of the woods to make a very millennial treat while investigating a far more tragic wedding. Do join me!

See also: Cooking the Books: A Twinkle of Trouble by Daryl Wood Gerber