A Matter of Loaf and Death: 5

Charisma Finnegan didn't want to take her sourdough starter on a cruise. Vincent VanDough had opinions about maritime life, and none of them were favorable.But when the Gulf Heritage Sourdough Cruise offered Eye of the Sunflower Bakery a featured spot on a floating competition sailing toward New Orleans - and when Riley Mercer looked at the invitation like it was an unlocked door - Charisma said yes.She should have brought more flour.Before the Belle Mariette clears the Gulf Coast, the cruise's celebrated food historian is found dead in the ship's proofing room. The temperature was wrong. The door had been opened at the wrong hour. And the evidence points directly at the one person aboard who had the least reason to be guilty: a young Louisiana baker named Lena Baptiste, whose family starter carries the only authentic proof of a theft that happened before she was born.Someone studied how Charisma works. Someone built a trail that rewards exactly the kind of attention she pays.And somewhere aboard the ship, a podcaster named Camille Graves is asking questions about Charisma that have nothing to do with sourdough.The sea doesn't have streets. It doesn't have Donna with coffee or Tom within a phone call. What it has is water in every direction, a dead woman's unfinished work, and a starter that went flat before Charisma found the body.Vincent knew first.He always does.A Matter of Loaf and Death is the fifth book in the Charisma Finnegan Sourdough Mystery series. Each book is a complete, standalone mystery.