Festival Foul Play
(2025)(The ninth book in the Blues and Brews Mysteries series)
A novel by Emily Brewster
When a corporate event planner's murder threatens to destroy Hopefield's traditional spring festival, former lawyer Mackenzie O'Brien Blake must solve the case before community members turn against each other in the name of cultural preservation.
Spring festival season should have been a celebration of mountain traditions and community cooperation. Instead, Mac finds herself battling corporate consultant Victoria Ashford, who's been hired to "modernize" Hopefield's fifty-three-year-old celebration by replacing traditional vendors with chain food trucks and eliminating local musicians in favor of professional entertainment. When Victoria turns up dead from a severe allergic reaction during her food sampling routine, Mac discovers that someone deliberately contaminated traditional festival foods with peanut oil—foods prepared by vendors who'd been systematically excluded from their own community celebration.
Armed with husband Travis Blake's food science expertise from brewery operations and her own legal knowledge of municipal governance, Mac uncovers Victoria's pattern of destroying authentic mountain festivals across the region while creating profitable tourist attractions for outside investors. But when the investigation reveals that multiple traditional food samples were contaminated by someone with intimate knowledge of both festival coordination and Victoria's deadly peanut allergy, Mac realizes the killer used community trust and traditional cooking as weapons in a premeditated murder scheme.
In small-town North Carolina, protecting traditions can become a deadly obsession.
With Police Chief Alexa Carlsbad managing a murder investigation that threatens to tear apart longtime community relationships, Mac must expose the truth before cultural preservation efforts destroy the very traditions they're meant to protect. But when the real killer proves to be someone who's spent years coordinating the festival they murdered to preserve, Mac faces the heartbreaking reality that community extremism can be more destructive than any outside threat.
For fans of cozy mysteries with cultural themes and community dynamics—think Louise Penny meets small-town resistance, with brewing expertise and traditional mountain culture at the heart of the mystery.
The ninth book in the Brews & Blues Mystery series featuring Mac O'Brien and the Emerald Isle Brewery.
Genre: Mystery
Spring festival season should have been a celebration of mountain traditions and community cooperation. Instead, Mac finds herself battling corporate consultant Victoria Ashford, who's been hired to "modernize" Hopefield's fifty-three-year-old celebration by replacing traditional vendors with chain food trucks and eliminating local musicians in favor of professional entertainment. When Victoria turns up dead from a severe allergic reaction during her food sampling routine, Mac discovers that someone deliberately contaminated traditional festival foods with peanut oil—foods prepared by vendors who'd been systematically excluded from their own community celebration.
Armed with husband Travis Blake's food science expertise from brewery operations and her own legal knowledge of municipal governance, Mac uncovers Victoria's pattern of destroying authentic mountain festivals across the region while creating profitable tourist attractions for outside investors. But when the investigation reveals that multiple traditional food samples were contaminated by someone with intimate knowledge of both festival coordination and Victoria's deadly peanut allergy, Mac realizes the killer used community trust and traditional cooking as weapons in a premeditated murder scheme.
In small-town North Carolina, protecting traditions can become a deadly obsession.
With Police Chief Alexa Carlsbad managing a murder investigation that threatens to tear apart longtime community relationships, Mac must expose the truth before cultural preservation efforts destroy the very traditions they're meant to protect. But when the real killer proves to be someone who's spent years coordinating the festival they murdered to preserve, Mac faces the heartbreaking reality that community extremism can be more destructive than any outside threat.
For fans of cozy mysteries with cultural themes and community dynamics—think Louise Penny meets small-town resistance, with brewing expertise and traditional mountain culture at the heart of the mystery.
The ninth book in the Brews & Blues Mystery series featuring Mac O'Brien and the Emerald Isle Brewery.
Genre: Mystery
Used availability for Emily Brewster's Festival Foul Play