Spring has come to the Cape Cod town of Westham, Massachusetts, and with it, a pushy new Chamber of Commerce director named Wagner Lavoie. While Mac Almeida is happy to participate in the Spring festival he’s organized, she’s not the only local business owner to feel that he’s pressuring them to contribute just a little too much. It’s fine to ask the different stores to consider handing out freebies, but Wagner’s demands are not only over the top but verge on being outright reckless.

Regardless of his lack of popularity, it’s still a shock when he’s found dead under a heavy bookcase in the store run by one of Mac’s friends, former police chief Norland Gifford. Norland is stricken that he didn’t do a thorough enough job of securing all the furniture, but Mac suspects that this was no accident. When the local police confirm that Wagner was killed before the bookcase was brought down on him, Mac and Norland are both a little relieved–until another member of their Cozy Capers book club falls under suspicion of Wagner’s murder.

But candy maker Gin Malloy was not the only resident of Westham to have loudly and publicly argued with Wagner. As Mac seeks to clear her best friend’s name, she discovers that Wagner had plenty of enemies–both in town and in the surrounding areas. More disturbingly, he’d had an altercation with Mac’s newest employee, Sandy McKean, whose reaction to his death could be described as shady at best. Will Mac be able to solve the crime and stay out of trouble when danger is potentially lurking so close to home?

This was another fun installment of the Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery series, as Mac and her friends fight crime in their otherwise-quiet small town. It’s nice to see the surrounding areas explored as their investigations cast a wider net for suspects. I also love how socially conscious the series strives to be, with this book, in particular, doing a really good job of including issues of race and disability in a matter of fact manner.

There were five recipes included at the end, all for dishes deliciously described in the text. I decided to serve this one to my extended family:

Curried Shrimp and Vegetables

Ingredients

2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 onion, minced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 green pepper, seeded and diced

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

1 ½ teaspoons curry powder

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 can coconut milk

1 carrot, peeled and sliced

1 cup snap or snow peas, de-stringed

1 pound frozen raw shrimp, thawed and peeled

Juice of one lime

Fresh mint leaves

Instructions

Heat the oil in a skillet or wok. Saute the onion until translucent. Add the green pepper, ginger, garlic, and curry powder and cook, stirring, for one minute. Stir in tomato paste and cook another two minutes until slightly darkened.

Add coconut milk, carrots, and a pinch of salt. Bring to a simmer and cook several minutes until carrots are cooked. Add peas and shrimp and cook, stirring, until shrimp are barely opaque.

Squeeze lime juice over the sauce. Serve hot over rice, garnishing with fresh mint.

This was a very mild but tasty curry that doubles quite easily if you’re feeding larger numbers, as I was. I highly recommend adjusting your salt levels to taste and, perhaps, adding your preferred chili oil, too, if you like some heat. I do recommend letting the shrimp cook for a little longer than just barely opaque, especially if you’ve gotten larger shrimp like I did. I did forget to get mint, but I don’t think that omission had too negative an impact on the final dish.

Next week, we make seasonal candy from a trio of holiday cozy novellas before taking a break for the end of the year. Do join me!

See also: Cooking the Books: Baking Spirits Bright by Sarah Fox