Spoon to be dead

The owner of an ice cream shop faces down winter in Upper Sprocket, Oregon. Unlike coastal parts of the state, Eastern Oregon has cold winters, and Trinidad Jones isn't at all sure that residents will flock to her Shimmy and Shake Shop as December rolls around--so she decides to dip her toe in the hectic world of catering. Hoping to land a gig at the posh private party scheduled aboard Leonard Pinkerton's Sprocket Steamboat, she and her grandad, Papa Luis, work frantically to develop a menu of frozen treats, including the dairy-free option demanded by the exacting party hosts. Trinidad's mission is complicated by the reappearance of her ex-husband, Gabe Bigley, a convicted fraudster out on parole who hopes to settle back in Upper Sprocket. She's made her peace with the split from Gabe, whose other two exes, Juliette and Bonnie, are her best friends. But she's unsettled by the news that Bonnie, mother of Gabe's only child, Felice, plans to remarry the dirtbag. Unease turns to panic when Gabe reels into Shimmy and Shake, says he may have just killed someone, and passes out. That someone turns out to be birdwatcher Oscar Fuentes; Gabe, hospitalized with a concussion, doesn't remember hitting him with a borrowed car. Not only does Trinidad find herself with temporary custody of Oscar's parrot, Scooter, but since police chief Cynthia Bigley, Gabe's sister, is sidelined from the case, the confection creator decides it's her job to investigate. Whipping up a hundred hot chocolate bombs, it turns out, is nothing compared to uncovering the dark doings that led to the bird browser's demise. Standard small-town shopkeeper hijinks. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.