Dinner for Six

Longlisted for the 2026 Mystery & Mayhem Book Awards! A blind date turns to calamity in this charming story that’s Materialists meets Anxious People. Single, female, forty-one. Forensic psychologist Jamie Frisco’s bio reads more like victim data than stellar online dating fodder, and she’s on the verge of becoming a forever-spinster. Then her mother threatens to leave her out of her will unless Jamie brings a suitable date to her wedding. Enter matchmaker Lorna Gray, who invites Jamie to a blind date night—Dinner for Six. Recently paroled antiquities thief Cliff Weston is desperate to change but needs a loan to start his new security business. Looking to schmooze his benefactor by passing as a family man, he accepts Lorna Gray’s invitation to Dinner for Six. As Dinner for Six commences, Jamie, Cliff and four other unlikely singles are digging into their main course when bombs knock out the power, throwing everything into chaos. After the smoke clears, a SWAT team arrives and a lockdown ensues, trapping them together. As the night goes on, sparks fly between Cliff and Jamie. Meanwhile, the biggest heist in Manhattan Beach history goes down, and someone at the table might be behind it all.