Baked to Death: A Simon Kirby-Jones Mystery

By Dean James

James's fourth cozy to feature the gay vampire, medieval historian and amateur sleuth, Simon Kirby-Jones (after 2004's Decorated to Death), takes a bitchy, laugh-out-loud look at historical re-enactments and the obsessive people who live them. In the Bedfordshire village of Snupperton-Mumsley, Lady Prunella Blitherington, the mother of Simon's dishy assistant, Giles, has sold a meadow to London businessman Murdo Millbank, who wants to build a year-round banquet hall and tourist attraction on the site. But first he has to co-opt the re-enactment group, Gesta Angliae Antiquae, that has settled in for a weeklong "medieval faire." Since King Harald Knutson (Henry Baker, greengrocer, in the real world) is dead set against Millbank's plan, Baker has to be ousted for a more compliant king, restaurant owner Luke d'Amboise (aka Luke de Montfort, Duke of Wessex). When Luke succumbs to a poisoned fig pastry (recipe included), Simon finds any number of suspects who wanted the man dead. The reappearance of Simon's graduate adviser and ex-lover, Tristan Lovelace, further complicates his life. Readers will be guessing the killer's identity right to the end of this frothy entertainment.

	Hardcover Kensington Pub Corp (April 2005)
	Paperback Kensington Pub Corp (July 2006)