#COOKING WITH CLORIS--HEALTHY BROWNIES AND A NEW PENNY WEAVER MYSTERY FROM AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN

Judy Hogan is both an author and a publisher. Her archives are in Duke University’s Sallie Bingham Women’s History and Culture Collection. She enjoys reading, writing, and teaching and works on environmental issues in Moncure, NC, where she lives. Learn more about her at her website and blog.

A few years ago I was having some numbness episodes in my left hand and arm. They lasted less than five minutes, but I was advised to go to the Emergency Department to check it out. The main doctor I saw was a resident, who was usually overworked and exhausted. Her supervising doctor was a tyrant, as I learned. My own doctor always listened to me, so I wasn’t of the school that medical doctors, even at the highest level, were always right. 

 

This big doctor said he’d found the problem, and threatened me when I refused the medicine.

 

This left me feeling how wrong it was for a medical doctor to tyrannize like that. Hence this book. 

 

Sickness Unto Death is a phrase from Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher. It meant Despair to him. The only medical code I know about for the medical profession is “Do No Harm.”

 

Most of the novel takes place in a teaching hospital in rural North Carolina on the Stroke Ward.

 

Healthy Brownies

 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup soy flour

1 tsp. salt

12 T. (or less) cocoa

2/3 cup whole wheat or whole rye flour

4 eggs

1 cup oil

2 cups granulated sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

 

Sift together flours, salt, and cocoa. 

 

In a bowl beat the eggs and oil together. Gradually beat in the sugar. Add

the vanilla. Then mix in the dry ingredients in two parts. Add nuts, 

 

Bake in a 12” x 16” greased baking pan or two 8” x 8” pans 25-30 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack. Cut into squares. 

 

Sickness Unto Death

A Penny Weaver Mystery, Book 15

 

When Penny Weaver goes to the hospital because of some left arm numbness, her roommate is a very sick woman with pneumonia, diabetes and congestive heart failure. The doctors are worried Tenisha will have a stroke. Penny patiently submits to all the tests the doctors run and is told not to walk without a nurse being called, though the bathroom is only 3 steps from her bed. Tenisha is an unruly patient. She takes out her oxygen IV and yells for the nurse to give her something stronger than Tylenol. Both women have a bad night, and at 6 a.m. the next morning Tenisha falls out of her bed and dies.

 

When Penny’s husband Kenneth visits, he is sure that Tenisha’s death is suspicious. That brings in the detectives from the Shagbark Sheriff’s Department. Their investigation is thorough, but the cause of death is still not clear. Penny also is interviewed, but no solution is found. Penny is quite distressed at her own diagnosis and the prescription for her to take an anti-epileptic drug. She refuses, but the chief neurologist threatens that he will tell the DMV to take away her driving license if she doesn’t take the drug.

 

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BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN TALKS ABOUT DEVELOPING A TEEN CHARACTER

Judy Hogan has published thirteen Penny Weaver Mysteries with another on the way. She also writes poetry, edits creative writers, and offers workshops. Learn more about her and her books at her website and blog. Today she stops by to talk about how one of her characters developed over time.   

About Seb

I’m not sure how my character Seb emerged the way he did as my amateur detective Penny Weaver’s grandson. True, she’d kept him as a toddler for his mother many times over the years. Seb wanted to help Penny, Kenneth and their next-door neighbors, the Styles, plant the spring garden. Leroy, his dad, let him plant “nunions.” 

Meantime, Penny’s daughter Sarah, his mother, hadn’t wanted to marry Leroy, his father. She was trying to find someone to marry, who suited her, but such men didn’t want to be Seb’s daddy. This was painful all around. 

Finally, a young farmer named Mark Judd, who had his own problems, fell in love with Sarah and Seb. About the same time another farmer, Nora Fisher, fell in love with Leroy, and these four had a double wedding. So Seb ended up with four parents, who had the best of intentions, but sometimes had trouble keeping up with Seb. 

Seb ran away to Raleigh with some older friends, who willingly gave him a ride, so he could attend the Moral Monday March led by Rev. Barber. The police called Sarah. He was too young to be in a protest, they said. He was fourteen. 

Another time he had refused to go to school because he knew more about The Odyssey than his teacher. Penny had already read it with him. 

At the capitol building, Penny’s friend Oscar had stayed with Seb. His mother was furious. Oscar offered to tutor him in writing college essays, which Seb loved.

The crowning blow to Seb’s four parents, as well as to Naomi’s parents, was the discovery by Aunt Sammie that fourteen-year-old Seb and thirteen-year-old Naomi were enjoying the joys of sex while Naomi was babysitting Sammie’s kids. Although this story in Pernicious Poll is a subplot, it may be the most interesting part of the book. One reviewer wrote: “I loved the ending.” The reader may wonder whether the teens will be able to cope if they lose the joys of sex. More of the story will come out in the fourteenth novel of the series, A Teen’s Christmas in Wales.

Pernicious Poll

A Penny Weaver Mystery, Book 13

The North Carolina state government has passed a new law that requires voters to show a picture ID. Its real aim is to make it harder for elderly black citizens to vote. Penny Weaver and her friends are working to assist elderly voters to get a state-issued ID. Meantime the lead counsel for the NAACP court challenge to the new law, Becka Cagle is murdered on her doorstep. Penny's friend Sammie learns that her grandson Seb and Sammie's niece Naomi had discovered the joys of sex at ages fourteen and thirteen. Penny, Sammie, and Lt. Lilly Bates of the Sheriff's Department work to solve the murder. While the three women do their own investigation, their friend Kate takes over the role of the dead Becka in the NAACP case, and Penny's husband Kenneth guards Kate. The parents of the teens come together to make new rules for the teens, but Penny ends up keeping her grandson Seb when his parents are busy, and Seb finds it easy to outwit her.

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#COOKING WITH CLORIS--BAKLAVA RECIPE AND A CHARACTER INTERVIEW WITH LILLY BATES FROM JUDY HOGAN'S PENNY WEAVER MYSTERY SERIES

Today we’re joined by Lilly Bates from the Penny Weaver Mystery Series by Judy Hogan.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings? Difficult, sad–I’d lost my husband–and boring.

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself? 

I may not seem tough, but I am.

What do you like least about yourself? 

That other people think I’m a pushover. I’m not.

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?

She set it up so I’d have my baby during a hurricane.

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about? 

I argued that my babies always came on the due date, but she fixed it so it came early, and I couldn’t get to the hospital.

What is your greatest fear? 

Being asked to take care of houseplants.

What makes you happy? 

A quiet day, when everything goes along normally.

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why? 

She decided I was going to marry the sheriff, just because he was in love with me. Unfair, I thought. I could have had a nice, quiet life with my two boys.

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why? My boss at the Sheriff’s Dept., Derek Hargrave. He promoted me to lead detective, and then he won’t let me lead. He takes over my cases like anything.

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why?  

I’d rather be Sammie Hargrave. She can cope with anything. Nothing fazes her, seems like. Me, I get upset, even if I don’t show it.

What’s your favorite food? 

Oh, Angelika’s Baklava. Those honey treats go down well.

Baklava from Angelina’s Kitchen 

Ingredients:

Syrup: 

2 cups sugar

1-1/2 cups water 

1 cup good quality honey

2 cinnamon sticks

2 T lemon juice

10 whole cloves

Rind from one lemon – stud with the whole cloves.

Nut Mixture: 

5 cups nuts (e.g., pecans and walnuts) roughly chopped

1/4 tsp ground cloves

2 T good ground cinnamon

1/2 cup sugar

Zest of 2 oranges and or lemons

The Rest: 

1 package #4 filo dough, defrosted overnight in fridge 

1-1/2 lbs. clarified butter, warmed to liquid

Rose water (optional)

An 11 x 18 pan – or any size, then cut the filo to fit the pan

Combine all syrup ingredients except honey. Bring to a gentle boil and cook until sugar melts. Add honey and cook a few minutes until honey dissolves into syrup.

Refrigerate syrup. Syrup must be cold when you pour it over the hot baklava. 

Coarsely grind nuts. Mix with cloves, cinnamon, orange zest, sugar.

Pre-heat oven to 350.

Open filo and cut to fit 11” x 18” pan.  

Once you open filo, work until it’s done. Brush bottom of pan liberally with butter. Lay first sheet of filo in pan. Brush with a little butter. Repeat till you have 7 – 8 sheets of filo layered.

Cover filo with 1 cup of the nut mixture. Sprinkle nuts with a dash of rose water (optional.) Place another sheet of filo over the nut mixture. Brush with butter. Add another layer of nuts and rose water. Repeat for 4 – 5 layers until nuts are used up. 

Keep layering remainder of filo / butter till all filo. Place last layer of filo on top and gently pat to “settle” the nuts.

Cut the baklava before you bake it. Use a sharp serrated knife to make squares, diamonds or triangles. Do not cut all the way through – only through the top filo and into the nuts, then brush the rest of the butter on top of baklava.  Cover the baklava well – melt more butter if needed.

Bake at 350 degrees 40-50 minutes until golden. Remove from oven and pour the the cold syrup over baklava. Allow syrup to absorb. 

Fatality at Angelika’s Eatery 

A Penny Weaver Mystery, Book 11

Angelika’s Eatery is a favorite lunch place for activists and small farmers. Fred Ainsworth, who owns 500 acres, started a commune which ten farmers joined, paying cash. When Fred is found dead in the restaurant, Penny and her friends Sammie, and Lilly, lead detective in the Sheriff’s Department, work on solving the death. They learn from Fred’s banker that he was broke. In the legislature their representative Rick Clegg leads the fight against fracking while the banker tries to legalize it. The farmers learn Fred had sold his fracking rights to a fracking company. Penny and her husband Kenneth now live in the black community in the village of New Springs in a green home designed and built for them by their neighbor Arnold, who lost the most money when Fred died penniless and is top murder suspect. The three women, calling themselves the Cahoots, work to find the killer.

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AN INTERVIEW WITH SAMMIE HARGRAVE FROM AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN'S PENNY WEAVER MYSTERIES

The Gower Peninsula, Wales

Today we sit down for a chat with Sammie Hargrave from author Judy Hogan’s Penny Weaver Mystery Series.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings?

That’s not how it happened. If anything, I pull her strings. She’s not very good when the plot thickens, so to speak. She won’t lie; she’s too well behaved. I’m the one who livens things up, and she doesn’t understand me. I’ve always liked a few adventures in the unknown. I still do.

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself?

I mostly get what I want. It’s real easy to outwit my detective husband Derek, who is quite serious and law-abiding, and so is Judy, by and large. I’m the one who pulls Penny into solving the mystery, even if I have to get into Derek’s briefcase and look at the autopsy report. I have zest, courage, and determination. I know how to get away with things. Piece of cake.

What do you like least about yourself?

In brand new situations, I’m rather shy and quiet. I like to wear lively clothes, but if everyone else, as in Tormentil Hall, is wearing pastels and grays, I feel out of it. That bothers me. Why should I care? I know I look beautiful.

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you?

This vacation in Wales was her idea, but I was skeptical. I’m black, and I’d never heard of anyone I knew or was kin to me going to Wales. London, yes, but not Wales. Must be a rather strange place. It turned out to be a very bad mistake.

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about?

Yes, but she has a will of her own sometimes, too. Once we were in Wales, I knew it was a mistake. Not one black person, and only one or two Americans, even as tourists. We were definitely in the wrong place for a relaxing vacation.

What is your greatest fear?

Being surrounded by racists, especially in another country. Here in central North Carolina, I know these old racists, but in Wales? Very strange, scary white people.

What makes you happy?

Living the way I want to live. I certainly wouldn’t have chosen freely to go to Wales.

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why?

I’d never go to the Gower Peninsula in Wales.

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?

That old lady who was so bossy and so racist: Gilda Davis. I couldn’t stand her from the get-go.

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why?

No, I don’t want to be anyone but myself. But so far, foreign travel doesn’t interest me much.

Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog?

The best thing about Judy Hogan is that she lets me be who I am, even when I’m depressed. Mostly, I’m lively and fun. Why not? You can check her out on her website. http://judyhogan.home.mindspring.com She blogs, too, mostly poems lately, and people all over the world read it. That makes her happy.

http://postmenopausalzest.blogspot.com

Judy Hogan has now published nine Penny Weaver mysteries, the first one being The Sands of Gower, back in 2015. In it Penny meets Kenneth Morgan, a Welsh policeman, and they fall in love. In later books they are married. They end up living partly in Riverdell, in a village in Central N.C., and partly in Wales on the Gower Peninsula.

What's next for you?

The tenth Penny Weaver mystery will be available May 1, 2019.

Tormentil Hall

A Penny Weaver Mystery, Book 8

In this eighth mystery I took Penny and Kenneth back to Wales with their dear friends Sammie and Derek Hargrave. Kenneth and Derek worked together in the Shagbark County Sheriff’s Dept. It occurred to me that I had never seen anyone black on Gower. I loved it there, the sea always close, the greens from all their rain, their beautiful flowers and so many footpaths to explore. But for Sammie and Derek, it meant racial discrimination and xenophobia. Sammie, always so confident and cheerful, was soon depressed, and then Derek was falsely arrested, and Kenneth, who worked for the CID out of Swansea, could do nothing to help. When I realized that my black characters would suffer in a way Penny had never imagined, I explored that. Who did kill the pushy woman they shared time with in the B&B? Penny eventually gets Sammie to help her solve the crime.

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#TRAVEL TO WALES IN AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN'S PENNY WEAVER MYSTERY SERIES

Gower Peninsula near Swansea, Wales

Judy Hogan has published nine Penny Weaver mysteries, seven volumes of poetry, and three prose works. She edits creative writers and offers workshops. Learn more about her at her website and her Postmenopausalzest blog.

The Sands of Gower, my first mystery of the Penny Weaver series, was set on the Gower Peninsula near Swansea in Wales. I myself had visited Gower often from 1981. I could walk to many different historical places along footpaths: to a cave going back to before the ice age, to remnants of Norman castles, to cairns and graves going back 4000+ years. The Vikings had been there and left their names: Swansea (Swann’s Eye), Worm’s Head (dragon head), Archeologists are still learning what happened in earlier centuries on Gower.

I had sprained my ankle on a long walk at the end of the peninsula near Worm’s Head in the summer of 1990, and so couldn’t range around Gower as I had always done. My B&B landlady suggested I write a “murder,” and I began to plot The Sands of Gower then. I wrote it in 1991, but it wasn’t published until 2015.

After my novel Farm Fresh and Fatal (originally published in 2013), I took Penny and Kenneth back to Wales with their dear friends Sammie and Derek. Kenneth and Derek worked together in the Shagbark County Sheriff’s Dept. It occurred to me that I had never seen anyone black on Gower. I loved it there, the sea always close, the greens from all their rain, their beautiful flowers and so many footpaths to explore. But for Sammie and Derek, it meant racial discrimination and xenophobia.

Sammie, always so confident and cheerful, was soon depressed, and then Derek was falsely arrested, and Kenneth, who worked for the CID out of Swansea, could do nothing to help. When I realized that my black characters would suffer in a way Penny had never imagined, I explored that. Who did kill the pushy woman they shared time with in the B&B? Penny eventually gets Sammie to help her solve the crime.

The Sands of Gower

A Penny Weaver Mystery, Book 1

Poet Penny Weaver and her Welsh policeman husband Kenneth Morgan persuade their close friends Sammie and Derek Hargrave to accompany them to their beloved Gower peninsula in Wales, where they spend several months a year away from their home in Riverdell, a central North Carolina village. 

Even before they arrive at Kenneth’s sister Gwyn’s B&B in the village of Pwll du, Sammie panics at how her lively colors and exotic clothing is causing even the proper British to stare at her.  There are few African Americans on Gower. 

The next day the visit turns into a nightmare when an obnoxious woman guest dies after falling down the stairs. Derek, who was the only one awake in the house, is accused of pushing her and soon arrested.  Kenneth normally works for the Swansea CID when he and Penny are in Wales, but his chief is on holiday, and xenophobic substitute Chief Investigator Williams wants to pin the death on the visiting African American cop.  

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#TRAVEL TO #WALES WITH AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN

Worm's Head on the Gower Peninsula, Wales  (photo by John Ewing)

Author Judy Hogan takes us on a visit to Wales today, setting for her Penny Weaver Mysteries. Learn more about Judy and her books at her website.

The Gower! Gwyr in Welsh. How happy I always was to see the sign in English and Welsh as the bus took the road to the little peninsula near Swansea. My first visit had been in 1981 for one weekend. Then I’d been back for several weeks at a time in 1985, ‘88, ‘90, ‘95 and ‘96.

I loved the diversity of the landscape: chalk cliffs, the sea rolling in to wash against them, with tide pools and, on the cliffs themselves, wild flowers including orchids. I could walk in woods, explore ancient caves back to the Ice Age, see remnants of all the invasions into the land of the Britons, from the Romans, the Vikings, the Norman conquest of the French, and the present day tourists, though most of the “visitors,” as the British call them, came from the UK back in those days.

Today you’d find more Americans as well as more bed and breakfast accommodations, self-catering cottages, and the standby caravan parks and hotels. The landscape remains in some way pristine, and it’s an ideal place to explore if you have no car and like to walk as I did. There are footpaths everywhere and a bus runs along the peninsula.

Mrs. Merrett provided a single room and also gave me an evening meal for a little more per day. She and I became friends, and it was in 1990, when I suffered a minor injury and couldn’t follow my usual pattern of ranging the cliffs and seeking a spot out of the wind to write a poem, that she said, “Judy, you should write a murder.”

Edith Merrett knew I spent my evenings tucked up reading mysteries from the local library. I did begin plotting The Sands of Gower that visit, though I didn’t write it until the following summer. Poetry had been my creative writing focus until then. I tried that mystery for fun, but I enjoyed it for a different reason. Poetry has always helped me express my deep feelings, sometimes ones I scarcely knew I had. Writing fiction made it possible to articulate knowledge I had acquired through relationships, which was only partly conscious, about myself and other people.

I’ve always liked reading about the relationships of the characters, and I enjoy, more than plotting, getting at what people are like when they come into conflict with one another. I’ve had a lot of experience on the black/white line and find few books that explore that. So that became a major theme as my series advanced.

In The Sands of Gower Penny’s black friend Cathy is writing to her. In the second novel we meet Cathy in person, and also the lead detective in the village of Riverdell, Derek Hargrave. By the third book many more black characters appear, and I also began to take up community issues I’d learned about as I worked here in my own village of Moncure for safer nuclear storage, against air pollution, and in local politics. I’ve written sixteen books now and plan to publish them all over the next five years.

Most of the books take place in Riverdell, a central North Carolina village, but two more return to Gower. Penny’s husband is a Welsh detective inspector, whom she meets in The Sands of Gower, and once married, they normally spend part of each year on Gower.

The Sands of Gower

Penny begins a new and lively stage of life, her children raised, with a powerful erotic attraction, and the freedom to cross lines that usually hold people apart. The book is set in a bed & breakfast on the Gower peninsula near Swansea, Wales.

Penny Weaver, luxuriating in her two-month vacation, is disturbed by the murder of a German guest. Penny’s independent, outspoken American lifestyle contrasts with the more conservative ways of the village’s pensioners. In the process of solving the crime, Penny and Detective Inspector Kenneth Morgan are powerfully attracted. This, plus the British post-World War II continuing distrust of the Germans, complicates their investigation.

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~~~~~~~~~

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TRAVEL THURSDAY--THE GOWER PENINSULA IN WALES WITH GUEST AUTHOR JUDY HOGAN

Three Cliffs Bay
photo by John Ewing

Mystery author and poet Judy Hogan has been a reviewer, book distributor, publisher, teacher, writing consultant, and organizer of conferences, readings, and book signing events. Being a Malice Domestic contest novel finalist led to the sale of her first mystery and a subsequent sequel. Learn more about Judy and her books at her website. 

                                   

My Gower

I had no idea when I first visited the Gower Peninsula near Swansea in Wales in 1981, that ten years later I would write my first mystery novel and set it there.  I had begun reading traditional British mysteries after my eldest daughter went off to college and left me some time in the evening when I was too tired to work: Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, P.D. James, Josephine Tey. 

I enjoyed the food scenes, when the detectives would consult over scones with jam and cream, or eat digestive biscuits (what were they?)  I had $1500 extra and my kids could spend the summer with their dad. I decided to travel to the British Isles, whence most of my ancestors had come a few centuries earlier.

Three Cliffs Bay Rock Cleft 
photo by John Ewing

I checked out a library book on guesthouses in England, Scotland, and Wales.  Several recommended for their food, I wrote to, asking if I could work part-time for them and stay there for less money.  I had two replies.  A woman in Scotland recommended her mother-in-law in Wales on the Gower Peninsula, whose bed and breakfast cost was very reasonable, and I could get an evening meal at a nearby hotel.  A second guesthouse near Llandovery in central Wales offered to hire me for a month and cut my room and board in half.  I accepted this one, but I decided to go the weekend before to the Gower one. I found a cheap airline fare, contacted two English friends of friends who said I could stay a day or two, bought a Brit-Rail pass, and left for seven weeks.  I’d never been out of the country before.

England and Scotland satisfied my curiosity about places in English Literature and my Scottish ancestors.  When I entered Wales on the train, however, I immediately knew I would write poetry.  The beauty of Wales, wilder than England’s, assured that.  I didn’t see a mystery novel coming until 1990.

I liked Wales so much that I returned and spent longer periods in 1985, ’88, and ’90, with Mrs. Edith Merrett, who had a small B&B in the village of Southgate.  She provided an evening meal and gave me her single room.  I could walk or take the bus to explore a variety of historic sites: eleventh century castles; caves where human beings had survived through the Ice Age; Stone Age tombs, like Arthur’s Stone, where by legend he pulled out Excalibur; Overton Cliff where wild orchids grew; strange rock formations like Worm’s Head (named by the Vikings--it means dragon’s head); churches originally founded in the sixth century and their graveyards. 

Worm's Head 
photo by John Ewing

A nearby library had a good collection of mysteries and books on local lore; small stores provided me with snacks, pens, and composition books for writing poetry; and there were nearby pubs if I wanted a midday meal.  After a hearty British breakfast, I would head out for the day to walk along the cliffs or visit a spot where I’d not been yet, and I’d usually write a poem, tucked up away from the constant wind, before I returned for supper in the evening.

In 1990 I managed to sprain my ankle and was housebound for most of my stay.  Edith suggested I write a murder.  She knew I liked to read them.  I began plotting one set at a B&B very like Edith’s, though I didn’t write it until the next summer when I was back in North Carolina.  In The Sands of Gower my detective, Penny Weaver, loosely based on me, falls for a Welsh police detective, Kenneth Morgan.  I tried to publish it, even had a nice rejection letter from Ruth Cavin of St. Martin’s Press, and then in 1997 I wrote a second one, set in North Carolina but again involving Kenneth and Penny, so my series began.

Pennard Castlephoto by John Ewing

Every few years I’d write another one, but not until I joined Sisters in Crime in late 2007 did I work consistently at getting them published.  I’d also been entering each one in the Malice Domestic contest for the first best traditional mystery.  In 2011 I was a finalist, which led to my having that novel, my sixth, published in 2012.  In 2013 Farm Fesh and Fatal, the seventh novel in the series, was published.  The one I’d like to publish next is the first one, The Sands of Gower.  I’ve since revised and shortened it, also consulted a Gower policeman.  My readers have told me they’d like to read the story of how Penny and Kenneth got together.  Gower is almost a character in it, and certainly my fictional Evelyn and her B&B are modeled on Edith and the B&B where I spent many happy summers.

Farm Fresh and Fatal

When Penny Weaver joins the new Riverdell Farmers’ Market, things start out badly and get much worse. The county’s unpopular poultry agent is poisoned, apparently after drinking fruit punch provided by the abrasive and market manager, who claims innocence but is arrested. The state agricultural department threatens to close the market, so Penny and her friend Sammie rush to uncover the truth. What caused the agent’s death, and who put it in the punch?

"...vegetables turn out to be a lot more interesting than we'd ever guessed."--Mystery Scene Magazine

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