This is the second book in the deep-dish series. Delilah O Leary owns a pizzeria in Geneva Bay and enters a contest in the town's annual festival. One of her rivals' customers is poisoned and Delilah is accused of the crime. So she starts investigating to prove her innocence.

Ashes To Ashes, Crust To Crush
Deep Dish Mysteries, Book #2
Mindy Quigley
5 Stars

Synopsis:

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust is the second book in Mindy Quigley's delectable Deep Dish Mystery series, set in a Wisconsin pizzeria.

Newly single pizzeria owner Delilah O’Leary is determined to keep her restaurant afloat in the picturesque resort town of Geneva Bay, Wisconsin. To boost her bottom line, she sets her sights on winning the hefty cash prize in the town’s annual “Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest. In her corner, she’s got her strong-willed, “big-boned” cat Butterball, her wisecracking BFF, her cantankerous great-aunt, and a nearly-flawless recipe for Pretzel Crust Deep-Dish Bratwurst Pizza. But while Delilah and her team have been focused on pumping out perfect pizza pies, her ex-fiancé has cozied up to a new squeeze, juice bar owner Jordan Watts—Delilah’s contest rival.

When one of Jordan’s juice bar customers is poisoned by a tainted smoothie, Delilah lands deep in the sauce. Accusations fly, suspects abound, and a menacing stranger turns up with a beef over some missing dough. Between kale-juicing hipsters and grudge-bearing celebrity chefs, Delilah must act quickly before another one bites the crust.

Review:

The characters are well rounded and well developed. Delilah is trying to make sure her pizzeria stays in the black. She has decided to enter the “Taste of Wisconsin” competition to earn the prize money. Her ex-fiance has a new girlfriend, Jordan, who owns the new juice bar in town. When someone is poisoned at the juice bar, and Jordan is also poisoned, Delilah must get involved in finding out who is behind the poisonings. She will have help from her best friend, Sonya, and her cat, Butterball.


The writing style flows smoothly and the book is an easy read. The author is very talented in her descriptive writing and it kept me engaged in the story from page one. I needed to know what was going to happen from one page to the next. There were a lot of red herrings that you will need to figure out. The mystery was well plotted and there were enough clues to sift through and suspects to consider.

I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a well crafted cozy mystery. This book was very good and I really liked it.

I voluntarily reviewed an ARC of this book provided by the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley, which I greatly appreciate.

Dear Fellow Reader,

I do love a good cozy mystery. I don’t worry about trying to solve them while I read them, I just go along for the ride with the author.

This week’s book, Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust is the second in a series, I reviewed the first book back in October (https://cecooney.com/2022/10/12/six-feet-deep-dish-by-mindy-quigley/)


Delilah O’Leary is back with the same cast of characters from the first book, Six Feet Deep Dish, Delilah is feeling the pinch and is hoping that winning the prize at the Geneva Lakes’ Annual “Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest, She has been working endlessly on her entry, the pretzel crust deep-dish bratwurst pizza. Since breaking up with her rich ex-fiancé, she is constantly worried that the restaurant will go under, and winning the prize money in the contest will really go a long way to help her. Then she hears who the celebrity judge for the contest will be and is even more worried. It seems he and her best friend and chef have a poor relationship.

In the contest is the new juice bar owner, Jordan Watts, When Delilah goes to the juice bar, one of the customers in the juice bar is poisoned, Of course, the policeman assigned to the case is Calvin Capone, the policeman from the previous case, She felt there was some romantic draw there, but he had not followed up the way she expected, Is there an attraction or not? And does the scary guy who shows up at her restaurant figure into the murder?

As Delilah tries to figure out what is going on, she is warned by Detective Capone to stay out of the way, She, of course, doesn’t listen,

I think that I liked the second book more than the first, They are both good – especially as beach reads and I do think it will help to read them in order, But I am “one of those people” who think that series should be read in order,

Enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

I was given a copy of this book so that I could provide an unbiased review,

In the first book of this series I didn’t really like Delilah, and in this book I still didn’t. For a restaurant owner she seems to spend more time trying to solves a murder rather than working in her restaurant. The other characters and cat I thoroughly enjoyed, including the town setting. The commentaries with the recipes at the back of the book were a hoot.

Delilah, pizzeria owner wants to keep her restaurant in Geneva Bay, Wisconsin but needs money. She decides to enter the “Taste of Wisconsin” to win the cash prize. Delilah realizes that she is late in returning her cat Butterball to her ex. Her ex has been falling in love with the owner of a juice bar. While she awaits for her ex at the juice bar, a customer after drinking his juice beverage dies. What caused the death of the customer? While Delilah thinks about it, she finds that her aunt is cranky. Why? Delilah knows that Butterball is in a bad mood when he stays with her which she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t give up solving these problems while she tries to find out who the killer is. The original judge for the contest has died. Why? Will the contest still happen or not?

This is book 2 in the Deep Dish Mystery series. You do not have to read the first book of the series. It is written in a fast-paced, detailed and descriptive style. Delilah is a wonderful main character. She is busy with helping her friends and family even when they don’t want her help. The ending was excellent. The included recipes look too good not to make them. I will give them to my friend who is a great cook since I’ve never could make pie crust!

This was my first foray into the “cozy mystery” genre and it’s just not for me. I either need more romance in my rom com or more danger and intrigue in my mystery. That said, I did enjoy this story set in the fictional town of Geneva Bay, WI. Living in MN myself and having visited the actual town of Lake Geneva, WI, I appreciated the Midwest vibe and could absolutely picture the story unfolding there. I enjoyed all of the quirky characters even if some were pretty unbelievable. This was a quick read and, although it’s the second book in a series, it could stand alone as well.

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

In the 2nd book of the Deep Dish mystery series, Delilah finds herself caught up in another murder investigation when she watches a man die after drinking a smoothie at the new local juice bar.

I'm really loving this cozy mystery series a lot! Last year I read and enjoyed the first book so I jumped at the chance to read this one. This series is just so good. For one, I really like all of the characters and especially Delilah and her cat Butterball. I enjoy the small town atmosphere, reading about Delilah's deep dish pizza shop (the dishes she makes all sound so delicious) and then the mystery is just an added bonus. I breezed through the pages of this one completely hooked. This was an enjoyable ride and I'm left excited to continue on with this series in the future (it looks like the 3rd book releases late this year so I will be all over that). Both books in this series have just been fun reads!

Readers who enjoy cozy mysteries and those who just want a fun mystery to fly through should pick this series up. I don't think you necessarily have to read the books in order, but as there are currently only two in this series - it's definitely worth it to start with the first book. Also, this book would be the perfect read for this time of the year by the pool when you just need a book to lose yourself in during the dog days of summer.

Disclosure - I received a copy of this book thanks to the publisher.

I received this book free from the publisher but the opinions in this review are strictly my own.
The second book in this Deep Dish series has been good.
Delilah and her Staff are struggling with a very rainy summer in Wisconsin and the end of summer has provided beautiful weather.
Delilah has witnessed a man dying at the local smoothie place which also happens to be Sam's girlfriend's place. Capote, sexy cop man; is sent to the scene. All looks like a heart attack but then Jordan, the owner ends up in the hospital. Is it accidental or is the creepy guy hanging out to blame.
A fun read with Jarka added to the cast of characters and seeing the ones from book one develop more.

I am an absolute sucker for a good cozy mystery and this one didn’t let me down. It had a lovable cast of characters (especially Butterball 🫶) and did a great job of developing characters who weren’t as lovable at first. The dialogue also was so witty and not as cheesy as other cozies I’ve read.

One thing I really loved was how there were three separate mysteries essentially and it was so fun to see how things unraveled but still somehow stayed connected.

I think my favorite part though was the recipes at the end and how they were written in the perspectives of the people who made them in the book. Biz’s fully made me lol. It made up for the fact that it was set in Wisconsin (sorry as a Minnesotan I’m legally obligated to be a hater.)

In the second Deep Dish Mystery, we see Delilah struggling with her business, joint custody of her cat, and seeing her ex, Sam, with a new woman. When she stops by the new juice bar to drop off their cat, Butterball, she sees a man die of apparent poisoning after drinking Sam's girlfriend's smoothie! When she then falls ill, too, Delilah begins uncovering clues. With a friend's ex and a famous celebrity chef in town, flirtations with the local detective, and a cooking contest that could turn around their money troubles, this book is jam packed with events.

I'm really enjoying this series. The pizza descriptions always make me hungry, and are a fun spin on a cozy mystery business. There's so many characters that there's always something going on and always new suspects, though there were a lot of subplots to keep track of in this book! I definitely want to keep reading this series and look forward to seeing what happens next.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for my eARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

5 stars - 8/10

This is a very cute cozy with a great cast and a fun plot. It's not a special outstanding story by any means, but it's perfect for a spring day!

Thank you st Martins Press

My thoughts

- cute, quirky and fun!
- the twists were a delight.
- the cover is adorable
- the food descriptions were perfection!

Loved this and will definitely recommend!

I have interesting reactions to Mindy Quigley’s Deep Dish mysteries. I was a little worried I wouldn’t let her protagonist in the first book, Six Feet Deep Dish. I liked Delilah O’Leary, owner of a pizzeria in Geneva Bay, Wisconsin. I also liked the supporting characters. With Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust, though, the author fell into one of the habits I hate in cozy mysteries. Delilah is the perfectionist owner of a struggling business, but she spends so much time investigating crimes or dealing with people on the periphery of a crime that she’s seldom at her business. In my opinion, that’s one more reason small businesses struggle in cozy mysteries. Where’s the owner when you need them?

Delilah knows it’s going to be hard to make it through the winter when tourists aren’t supporting local businesses. But, Geneva Bay’s Taste of Wisconsin Cook-Off is offering a $10,000 grand prize. She’s been working on her bratwurst pizza, making tiny adjustments. The staff is absolutely sick of it. A disaster hits them head-on, though, when the president of the visitor’s bureau announces the celebrity judge, Graham Ulrich. Sonya, the “Son” in Delilah & Son, Delilah’s sous chef and best friend, had a fling with Graham’s wife, and he fired Sonya with a firing that went viral. If he’s in town, and knows Sonya is there, Delilah can kiss the prize money goodbye.

But, that news is quickly supplanted with the news that Delilah’s ex, Sam, is dating Jordan Watts, owner of Juice Revolution. Delilah’s on the scene when a customer dies there after having a smoothie, and Jordan ends up in the hospital after having the same flavor. Delilah calls a local police detective, Calvin Capone. It doesn’t take long for the death to be blamed on poison. And, while waiting for Calvin, Delilah finds a threatening note at the cash register.

There’s a lot happening in Geneva Bay. Delilah’s gruff Auntie Biz is acting strange. One of the team members is worried about a cousin who works at Juice Revolution and seems to have a lot of money. There’s a strange man hanging around the businesses in town. And, Delilah feels as if she has to stick her nose in all of the troubles. It’s no wonder she’s worried about her business.

That’s my biggest gripe about cozy mysteries. Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust does nothing to prove to me that small business owners can juggle work while investigating crime. Or, in this case, maybe I should say they can’t make dough while looking for a killer.

A perfect secondary installment in this cozy mystery series!

MV Rating: 6.5/10
•We’re returning to Geneva Bay, and the cozy pizza shop owned by Delilah, and featuring her Motley Crew of characters.
•After some blasts from the past show up in town for a food festival, a string of murders occur, and Delilah is inadvertently in the middle of it all - again!
•This series is just delightful. The characters are easy & familiar, and the mysteries aren’t too complex to follow. It’s a perfect little weekend read.
•This series feels like a mysterious Gilmore Girls, which honestly is a vibe for me.

I read "Six Feet Deep-Dish" by Mindy Quigley and enjoyed her characters and story. It was a good mystery and I was looking forward to her next book. This new one did not disappoint!

This is the second book in Mindy Quigley's delectable Deep Dish Mystery series, set in a Wisconsin pizzeria.
“Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest is in Dalilah's corner, she got her Deep-Dish Bratwurst Pizza with a pretzel crust to win the contest. When one of Jordan’s juice bar customers is poisoned by a tainted smoothie, Delilah lands deep in the sauce.
It is such a typical cozy mystery. I liked everything about this book, fun characters, cozy location, delicious pizza, the mystery and most important - the love interest. it all balanced well. Not too much, not too weak. this book make me happy. 5 stars for sure.

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust by Mindy Quigley is a fun cozy mystery that is very easy to read. With very relatable characters and humours dialogue, this is an easy book to recommend to people if they want something fun and simple. The way food was described made me so hungry, it was done so well. The plot was done really well, I didn't figure out the solution until the end along with the characters. My main complaint is the amount of times weight was brought up in the book whether it was the main character or even the cat.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Thanks NetGalley for the arc!

One Sentence Summary: Pizzeria owner Delilah is hoping the upcoming “Taste of Wisconsin” culinary contest will help keep her restaurant afloat, but when a customer at the juice bar her ex’s girlfriend runs is poisoned, Delilah finds her life getting a lot of complicated, and the contest in jeopardy.

In this second Deep Dish Mystery novel, Delilah is preparing a very special deep dish pizza for an upcoming culinary contest at the local “Taste of Wisconsin” festival. She’s driving her crew nuts, but really needs to win in order to comfortably survive. But there’s a new juice bar in town, and her ex is finding a new love with the owner, whom Delilah meets when she drops off the cat she and her ex share joint custody of. At the same time, a customer in the juice bar is poisoned, but evidence suggests the customer wasn’t the intended target.

With the contest looming, Delilah finds her attention split between perfecting her recipe, figuring out what’s going on with her elderly Aunt Biz, dealing with her co-owner’s ex coming back in town (as well as said ex’s ex-husband), and finding someone with access to poison. Oh, and there seems to be some mafia-related activity going on, and it might directly impact Delilah.

I enjoyed the first book, Six Feet Deep Dish, even if it reminded me a little too much of my favorite culinary cozy mystery series, so I decided to keep reading this series. The mystery had some good twists and turns, and there’s a few things going on as well that weren’t necessarily related to the story, so there was plenty to hold my interest. Butterball the cat was also a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed his antics, even if I do have to agree with his dad about his diet. But Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust wasn’t as focused on Delilah’s restaurant crew, all of whom I adored in the first book, so it was a little hard to get over the disappointment. It was nice to meet new characters, but I just didn’t feel as invested in them.

The mystery kicks off when Delilah tries to figure out who poisoned a customer at the new juice bar, and why. But it appears the customer was unlikely to have been the intended target, which leads Delilah in all sorts of directions. Unfortunately, with a small suspect list, it isn’t really hard to figure out who did it. What was interesting, though, was getting some of the local history between some of the characters and seeing how that fed into the current events. Again, it wasn’t hard to put together, but I did appreciate how the story felt like it was digging deep into the history of the area. The larger history also plays a role, which I really enjoyed because it has mafia ties. There’s a second murder that Delilah gets to investigate, and it’s close to her heart since it affects her friend and co-owner Sonya. So this was also interesting because it goes a little more into Sonya’s complicated romantic history. And that also had ties to the mafia, which had ties to yet another plot. So, there’s clearly a lot going on in this book, but I liked how they tied together and appreciated how it wasn’t overly complicated.

It was great to see the characters again and get to know some of them a little better, but the people I most loved in the first book weren’t a focus in this one. I love Delilah’s restaurant crew. They’re a delightful bunch, but this book mostly focuses on the owner of the juice bar, who happens to be dating Delilah’s ex. The relationship between Delilah and her ex is sweet, and I especially adored her ex at the end of the book. But Delilah is looking to move on herself, with a certain detective with an unfortunate family history. Mostly, I love that both he and Delilah are a bit older, and he even has a grandkid. But I was disappointed that their relationship just felt like it took a huge step back. Then there’s Aunt Biz, Delilah’s elderly unmarried aunt. She’s still sharp as a tack, but things have gotten away from her. She doesn’t want to divulge it, though, so Delilah takes it upon herself to try to figure it out. I really loved Aunt Biz in the first book, but she seemed not quite herself in this one. I understood it by the end, but I was still disappointed that such a vibrant character suddenly felt a little diminished and mean, even. I kind of expected better of her.

But the stand out characters are Sonya and Jordan, the juice bar owner. These are the two characters that the reader really gets to know more about. Delilah is great; but, even if her character did have some growth, her role was mostly just to figure out what was going on. I did appreciate how she reacted to the different situations she found herself in, though. But Sonya’s and Jordan’s pasts get special attention in this book. After plenty of heavy hints about Sonya’s in the first book, the reader finally gets to know the whole story in the second book. It was a little heartbreaking, and I really felt for Sonya. She really is more than what she appears with a big heart and a huge need to be loved. I really enjoyed getting to know her and her heart a lot better. Then there’s Jordan, who is brand new in this book. She came off as overly perky when I first met her, and I even felt a little overwhelmed by her. But something just didn’t quite feel right with her. I’m not sure if it was her actions or how she was written, but I felt like she was giving herself away from the very beginning. There’s a lot that doesn’t quite match up with her story, so I found myself fascinated by her and her history. But I most appreciated that there were no tough feelings between her and Delilah considering she’s dating Delilah’s ex and is basically Butterball’s stepmom. It was delightfully mature.

My favorite part of this book, and the series so far, is the history of the area. Geneva Bay is a lakeside resort area that houses the wealthy during the on seasons. But those wealthy residents aren’t a focus and aren’t even really seen, unless you count Delilah’s very wealthy ex with a very gorgeous house. Instead, the focus turns to the mafia history. I like that this series focuses on the mafia ties, and I really liked how that was a big plot in this book. I especially liked how Butterball played a role in it; he’s really an adorable cat with quite an appetite. But I really like how I feel absolutely fascinated by the history, and this book really played it up.

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust is a fun addition to the series. It delves further into the history of the area as well as the history of some of the characters. It keeps the world narrow, but gives more problems to some of the characters. I’m quite interested to see what happens next with the characters, especially with one of them moving on from Geneva Bay, and I hope the next book turns the light back onto the pizzeria crew. But I did like the mystery in this one. It was predictable, but I enjoyed being along for the ride. It was fun, but not complex. There’s also a good deal of food, which is also a plus for me.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a review copy. All opinions expressed are my own.

I really enjoyed Six Feet Deep Dish, the first book in the Deep Dish Mystery series by Mindy Quigley. So when I saw that a sequel was being released, I knew I needed to pick it up as I was curious how Delilah and her pizzeria were faring.

I was pleasantly surprised by Delilah’s growth from the first book to the second. In Six Feet Deep Dish, I found her quite brash and a little off-putting, although she did grow on me. In Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust, she’s much more likable.

Delilah has a lot on her plate with the upcoming local culinary contest, finding out her ex has moved on, then a couple murders thrown in to make things even more intriguing. There’s a lot going on, and Delilah mostly holds it together and is far less annoying. She has her moments, like when she and her aunt keep butting heads, but it’s relatable.

The mystery was more complex than the first now that most of the world-building is done. The new characters introduced nicely filled out Delilah’s little corner of Geneva Bay and made the story more interesting. The plot was filled with twists and turns and a couple red herrings. I was glad to be along for the ride.

I especially liked the end of the book with the recipes. Ms. Quigley wrote out each recipe in the voice of various characters from the book. I’ll be honest, generally, I skip the recipes. But something caught my eye in the first one, so I kept reading. The characters’ personalities came shining through as they gave a little “history” to the recipe before explaining how to create the dishes.

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust is a great second book in the series. I was hooked early in the story and couldn’t put the book down until I turned the last page. I’m enjoying this series and can’t wait for the next book to release. Fans of small-town and/or culinary mysteries should give this series a try.

Now that Delilah O’Leary has her deep-dish pizza place up and running, she has to face the reality of owning a restaurant in a vacation town. They are doing okay, but Delilah wants to make sure she can keep up with her employee salaries during the slow season. To that end, she is trying to perfect her deep dish pretzel crust bratwurst pizza with beer-cheese sauce to enter into the local Taste of Wisconsin Cook-Off. The prize is a big write-up in the local magazine as well as other excellent publicity and $10,000 cash. Delilah knows that would help them through the long winter in Geneva Bay.

As she’s trying to perfect the recipe, inflicting bratwurst after bratwurst on her sous chef Sonya, Delilah is also juggling her feisty great-aunt, a revolving door of servers, an overly solicitous head of the Visitor’s Bureau, a celebrity chef with a history, and shared custody of her beloved orange cat Butterball with her ex-fiancé Sam. When Delilah realizes she’s late for Butterball’s drop-off because of her bratwurst obsession, she offers to bring the cat to where Sam is. And where Sam is, is the new hippie juice bar, Juice Revolution.

When Delilah and Butterball show up, she meets the owner of the juice bar, Jordan Watts. As Delilah apologizes to Sam for being late, she starts to realize that it’s not a coincidence that Sam chose this place to spend his time. He’s moved on. He and Jordan are now a couple. And just as this is dawning on her, one of the customers starts having a seizure in the restaurant. Delilah calls for an ambulance, and when she starts to feel like something is off at the juice bar, she makes another call, to Capone himself.

Calvin Capone is a police detective who helped Delilah with a matter when she trying to open her restaurant (okay, it was a murder), and when Delilah started to feel in her gut that the customer had been poisoned, and then she found a threatening note in the kitchen of the juice bar, she knows she has to call the police. But what she doesn’t know, what she couldn’t begin to understand, is how the murder would bring together a criminal from the past, three different local buildings, and Delilah and Sam and Jordan, along with Delilah’s Auntie Biz, to unravel a series of financial crimes that lead to several attempts at murder.

Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust is the second book in Mindy Quigley’s Deep Dish Mysteries. With a tasty mystery and a cast of memorable characters, these books bake up into a delicious combination of murder, pizza, friendship, family, and flirting. This cozy mystery is layered with a divine setting, strong relationships, an adorable cat, and recipes for the drinks and snacks featured throughout the book.

I really enjoyed Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust, as the mystery comes with secrets and twists. The dark history of nearby Chicago adds some spice to these mysteries, offering a unique perspective on America’s fascination with the mob. But the beauty of the lake and the expensive homes contrast that dark history with luxury. But what I love most about these mysteries is Delilah and how she does everything she can to protect those around her. Even when she’s fighting with her Aunt Biz or having to deal with Sonya’s past coming back to maybe try to destroy them and the restaurant, Delilah is a fierce defender of those she holds close. And anytime there is talk of a pretzel crust, or pretzel bites, or pretzel anything, I am all in.

Egalleys for Ashes to Ashes, Crust to Crust were provided by St. Martin’s Press through NetGalley, with many thanks.