...With A Side Of Murder

MANHATTAN, OYSTERS MIGNONETTE, MANOLOS, AND MURDER

Lucia Maria Silvestri—but her friends call her "Mac"—wears many chic hats. She's a finance journalist turned head chef at a lower Manhattan French-American bistro, a fashion aficionado, occasional yogi, New Yorker tried and true, and recently remade single lady. She's also a loyal girlfriend (think: Sex and the City-style Three Musketeers) to freelance film producer Eugenia Cho and NY Phil cellist Katerina Belchenko—not to mention adoring granddaughter to Nona, a much-loved Lower East Side Italian-American community fixture.

"Ace amateur sleuth" couldn't be further from Mac's plans. Turns out, you can't plan everything. Because when smarmy investment banker (and friend of her ex) Jake Cooper drops by Mac's bistro with a couple of … hmm, seedy … associates, Mac can't help but wonder what he's up to this time. And when he gets himself poisoned at the fabled Russian Tea Room—right in front of Mac, and just before spilling the name of the Russian oligarch from whom he squandered millions—she can't help but investigate.

Turns out Jake had a hand in a massive insider trading ring which, of course, includes Mac's ex-husband, Andrew (why wouldn't it?). Plus, he was deep in the priceless artwork trade—an unexpectedly shadowy underworld to which Mac finds herself hypnotically drawn…

Before she knows it, Mac's waist-deep in much more than multi-million dollar art relics. She might even be waist-deep in murder. She finds she has no choice but to don said sleuth hat (not just any vintage haute couture will do), pick out a pair of trusty Manolo Blahniks to match, and solve the case—before she (or one of the women she loves) winds up on the tragic receiving end of a Novichok cocktail.