Discoveries in the Stacks is the Westover Branch Library’s occasional exploration of our collection, delving into areas that you may not have visited.

Who says you can’t have your cake and read it too?

With the holidays just around the corner, we indulge in a little fictitious food…before the real meals are on the table. For gourmet mysteries, sample a few of the following:

• Batter off Dead, the 17th entry in this cheeky Pennsylvania Dutch series by Tamar Myers, begins at an all-you-can-eat pancake breakfast at the Beechy Grove Mennonite Brotherhood Church when Minerva Jay keels over after eating 26 pancakes. Smart-mouth sleuth Magdalena Yoder investigates…and provides a slew of recipes for, hopefully, non-fatal flapjacks. D MYERS
• G.A. McKevett’s Savannah Reid is a PI with an attitude towards food: she likes it. In Wicked Craving, her 15th sun-drenched adventure in San Carmelita, California, the hefty investigator is mixed up in the death of Maria Wellman, the wife of a wildly successful weight-loss doctor. Is it fraud…or something more fiendish? D MCKEV
• Ever wondered what it would be like to be a food critic…or almost as good, to be married to one? Follow Lt. Capucine Le Tellier of the Paris Judicial Police as she solves her debut mystery in The Grave Gourmet, by Alexander Campion. It is the case of the president-directeur general of Renault automakers whose body is found in the refrigerator of a three-star restaurant. D CAMPI
• Forbidden Fruit, by Kerry Greenwood, features a troupe of singing vegans and a donkey who loves muffins. This Australian adventure about Corinna Chapman, owner of the Earthly Delights Bakery, gets off to a fast start as she chases a couple of run-away kids, and …yes…a luscious hunk. D GREEN

Enjoy this season’s bounty – and we’ll see you next time in another part of the stacks!