Death before dinner

from Midnight Ink Books

"Could something like murder happen in Fergus Falls—a quiet Minnesota town known for its Scandinavian heritage and great lake fishing? Yah, you betcha!

Every August Dr. George Gherkin, the Fergus Falls State University president, hosts a faculty party. It’s tradition for George to lock himself inside the kitchen to prepare his signature dish. But instead of Chicken Kiev, the guests find their chef with a meat cleaver buried in his head."

Prologue and Chapter One

excerpt from Chapter One:

"Murder is as common as jay-walking in much of urban America, but in Otter Tail County, in west central Minnesota, neither occur. Unpleasant things, by custom and inclination, are just not done. In fact, being in possession of an overdue library book is openly frowned upon. And when it comes right down to it, there are few things more unpleasant than murder with a meat cleaver. To be sure, in the last hundred years there had been the occasional act of manslaughter, and maybe a shotgun blast now and then, but that sort of thing was usually done by people who really didn’t belong in the community anyhow. But this murder, well, it was beyond unpleasant; it was, in fact, quite nasty.

Nastiness is out of place in Otter Tail County. There are 1,048 lakes there, all of them lovely, fresh, clear, and filled with fish and fishermen. It’s a place where the prairie meets the lake district, where a wheat field is on one shore and a deciduous forest is on the other. Small towns are found in unexpected places and serve the needs of intimate family lake resorts that are almost too numerous to mention."