Chill Before Serving

LAST MEAL

Los Angeles caterer Cat Deean is more than a little nervous when her boss and partner at swanky Dellacasa's hires a new chef. The talented and notorious Hippolytus "Polley" Arbusto recently owned an upscale San Francisco eatery that closed after poisoned quail was served at a dinner honoring a patron who, unfortunately, did not live to see dessert.

Soon after Polley starts cooking, Cat receives a package containing decapitated fowl and an ominous warning. Later she succumbs to a near-fatal dose of tainted porcini mushroom oil. Is someone out to destroy Polley, or is the chef himself a recipe for murder? The answers lead Cat back to San Francisco, to a pharmaceutical company with a dangerous marketing strategy, and a killer with an appetite for murder.