Hold the Cream Cheese, Kill the Lox

It isn't easy being a rabbi's wife in Eternal, Texas. It's even harder being a rabbi's widow. More than a year after her husband's death, the congregation still expects Ruby to behave "appropriately." But sometimes it's hard to be pious and ladylike when you're investigating a murder...

Essie Sue's obnoxious twin cousins are in town for pre--Bar Mitzvah schooling. And somehow, Ruby has been roped into letting the terrible twelve-year-olds stay with her. After all, Essie Sue says she's too busy orchestrating the grandest Bar Mitzvah feast in Temple Rita's history, starring master lox cutter Herman Guenther. But when Herman meets an untimely demise from his own slicing knife, Essie Sue's plans seem all but ruined. Not to mention Herman's. Tracing the victim's roots back to Nazi-era Denmark, Ruby heads to Alaska, and then New York, to piece together a puzzle that's pretty hard to swallow...