Piper Donovan/Wedding Cake Mysteries

“Clark has perfected the suspense novel.”
—Booklist

New York Times bestselling author and mystery writer par excellence, Mary Jane Clark kicks off her delicious new Wedding Cake mystery series with To Have and To Kill. A tasty departure from her thrillers featuring KEY News television anchor Eliza Blake (Dying for Mercy, It Only Takes a Moment), To Have and To Kill introduces readers to actress-turned-wedding cake decorator Piper Donovan, who discovers that the heat in the pastry kitchen can be hotter—and deadlier—that she ever imagined...and that her creative new enterprise is anything but a piece of cake. Foodies and fans of cable TV’s Amazing Wedding Cakes, as well as Faye Kellerman, Jayne Anne Krentz, and Diana Mott Davidson readers are going to eat this one up!

“One of the most talented story tellers around.”
—Associated Press

“Clark has perfected the suspense novel...in classic Christie fashion.”
—Booklist

New York Times bestseller Mary Jane Clark introduced readers to professional wedding cake decorator and amateur sleuth Piper Donavan in her acclaimed mystery novel To Have and To Kill. Piper’s back in The Look of Love, on cake creating assignment at a West Coast luxury spa for the wealthy and famous—where nip and tuck and murder are offered in equal measures. Clark really hits her stride with The Look of Love, providing a winning recipe for delectable mystery that combines chills, twists, humor and often very romantic suspense in the bestselling vein of Mary Higgins Clark, Carol Higgins Clark, Faye Kellerman, Elizabeth Lowell, and Jayne Ann Krentz. She even includes scrumptious pastry recipes and fabulous cake design tips.

It's the dead of winter and struggling actress and wedding-cake decorator Piper Donovan is thrilled to be in warm and romantic Sarasota, Florida, enjoying the powdery white beaches, soothing seas, and golden sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico. She and her family are there to celebrate her beloved cousin's wedding. Not only is Piper creating the sugar-sand-dollar-festooned wedding cake, she's also the maid of honor.

But a cloud seems to be hovering over the whole affair. Shortly after a bridesmaid mysteriously disappears, a kindly neighbor's car is run off the road and a prospective witness, an innocent Amish teenager, is threatened to keep silent. Then a body is found on the beach where the wedding will take place. With the nuptials threatened, it falls to Piper to unmask a killer. Could it be the wedding planner with something to hide? A doctor and his wife who collect unusual Japanese figurines? The best man, an ex–drug dealer with lecherous eyes and roving hands? What about her cousin's future stepfather—or even the bridegroom himself?

As Piper gets close to figuring out who's been covering his guilty footprints in the sand, the cunning killer has already set his sights on Piper as his next victim!

New York Times bestselling author Mary Jane Clark whips up a savory and suspenseful confection, filled with murder, mystery, history, and voodoo, in which Piper Donovan must unmask a devious killer striking in New Orleans's legendary French Quarter

That old black magic

Aspiring actress and wedding-cake decorator Piper Donovan has barely arrived in New Orleans to perfect her pastry skills at the renowned French Quarter bakery Boulangerie Bertrand when a ghastly murder rocks the magical city.

Intrigued by the case, Piper can't help but look for the "Hoodoo Killer" among the faces around her. Could it be the handsome guide eager to give her special private tours? Or the inscrutable jazz musician who plays on historic Royal Street? What about the ratings-starved radio talk-show host? Or even the amiable owner of the local Gris-Gris Bar?

Though Piper has a full plate decorating cakes for upcoming wedding celebrations, she's also landed an exciting but unnerving role in a movie being shot in the Big Easy. When the murderer strikes again, leaving macabre clues, she thinks she can unmask the killer. But Piper will have to conjure up some old black magic of her own if she hopes to live long enough to reveal the truth.