Burnt Ends

It’s Hamlet among ham hocks in Wetsel’s amusing debut, which follows self-styled PI Tori Swenson as she investigates murder and double-crossing in her family’s Kansas City barbecue empire. After she’s thrown out of rehab for smuggling in opioids, Tori decides to address her family’s long-simmering traumas at an upcoming reunion. Years earlier, Tori’s father died of a drug overdose, but she’s long been convinced he was murdered by her scheming uncle Charlie. More recently, an employee at the Swensons’ barbecue joint has died under suspicious circumstances, and Tori wants to suss out whether Charlie might be responsible for that death, too. When she arrives at the reunion, however, her relatives are squarely focused on squabbling over the sale of the restaurant to a powerful conglomerate. Then Charlie dies suddenly, and Tori’s suspicions get flipped upside down—might there be somebody else trying to turn up the heat on the Swenson family? The dysfunctional Swensons leap off the page, and Tori’s investigation is endearingly sloppy, with the cringeworthy mistakes of a first-time gumshoe generating the danger that many cozies lack. This sizzling whodunit deserves a sequel.