Cricket McRae - The Books

Lye in Wait: Now Available from Midnight Ink

"From the moment Sophie Mae Reynolds discovers the body to the moment Detective Ambrose discovers hers, McRae's soap-making sleuth kept me flipping pages and marveling at her tart tongue and gumption." Jane Isenberg, author of the Bel Barrett Mystery Series.

"A fresh new voice, wry and cheeky, speaks in Cricket McRae's Lye in Wait, a clever mystery with a romantic twist and an ingenious resolution. Key characters...are drawn with impressive depth and humanity." Larry Karp, author of First Do No Harm and the Thomas Purdue Mystery Series

Lye in Wait is a cozy mystery with a fresh face. Not all tea and crumpets, Sophie Mae Reynolds works hard, likes single-malt Scotch, and lives with her best friend, her best friend’s ten-year-old daughter, and a snarky old Corgi. She’s smart, prettier than she knows and possesses a wry sense of humor. She also barrels into situations without thinking and manages to embarrass herself with amazing regularity as she puzzles out why the neighborhood handyman drank a glass of lye and died on her workroom floor.

"McRae crafts strong characters," and "...spins a credible, enjoyable plot." -- Library Journal Review

"Say good-bye to whatever stereotypes of home crafters you may have, and welcome boutique soap-maker Sophie Mae Reynolds, the amateur sleuth/heroine in McRae's debuting Home Crafting Mystery series. The author, herself a soap maker, gives readers a new tweak on the cozy, complete with credibly written characters possessing enough appealing eccentricities to keep readers happy." -- Booklist

"Cricket McRae's winsome debut mystery..." is "...a fine start to this new series." -- Mysterious Reviews

Click here to read the first two chapters of Lye In Wait

Coming Up Next

Heaven Preserve Us: August, 2008

A reputation as a small town busybody sleuth. A gum-cracking boss who keeps calling her "babe." Now a suicidal phone stalker? Great.

After solving the messy mystery of her neighbor-hood handyman’s lye-induced death, thirty-something Sophie Mae Reynolds makes preserves by day and answers phones at a crisis center by night. What better way to keep a low profile? But on her very first night, Sophie Mae gets a call from a man who is threatening suicide . . . and her. Over-hearing the caller’s irate outbursts, her morally-bankrupt boss Philip Heaven severs the line. As harassing calls to her home increase, Philip comes down with a deadly case of food poisoning. And his eerie last words keep ringing in Sophie Mae’s ears: "Threat. Meant it." Now stirring up the town with talk of murder-by-preserves, Sophie Mae and her hunky boyfriend Detective Ambrose are on a blood-red trail of rancid beets to find and stop the crafty killer.