Gourmet popcorn entrepreneur Rebecca Anderson and her poodle, Sprocket, are back on the case, in the second Popcorn Shop Mystery from the author of Kernel of Truth . Despite Rebecca Anderson’s best efforts to distance herself from her ex-husband, the guy keeps popping up. When Antoine offers to feature her breakfast bars and popcorn fudge on his popular cooking show, she suspects he’s once again trying to butter her up—but the TV exposure for her gourmet popcorn shop, POPS, is too good to turn down.   Things take a shocking turn when the crew comes to Grand Lake to film in her shop, and Rebecca discovers Antoine’s assistant electrocuted in a hotel bathtub. Now the police want Antoine to come clean. Her ex may be a pain, but he’s no killer. So Rebecca decides to bag the real culprit. If she isn’t careful, however, she may be the next one getting burned. INCLUDES POPCORN RELATED RECIPES! Praise for Kernel of Truth   "A wry, witty voice that had me laughing out loud, a truly puzzling mystery plot, and a popcorn shop setting that earns its place with clever clues a-plenty. Kernel of Truth is as ingenious as Bec's Tuxedo Coco Pop Fudge (and as irresistible). Bursting with delights."—Catriona McPherson, award-winning author of The Day She Died Kristi Abbott is the author of  Kernel of Truth , the debut novel in the Popcorn Shop Mystery series. One I knocked on the hotel room door. No one answered. I glanced at my watch. Seven forty-five in the morning. I was right on time. The fact that I'd had to dump the hectic breakfast crowd on Susanna and Sam to be on time for this meeting didn't irritate me at all. Now that it appeared that the person who had insisted she could only make time to talk to me from seven forty-five to eight fifteen on Thursday morning wasn't answering her door, I didn't feel like the top of my head was about to explode like a can of dulce de leche left to simmer too long. No. Of course not. I knocked again. I'd never really liked Melanie, not from the first moment Antoine Belanger hired her. Everyone thought it was about jealousy, but if it was, it wasn't because I was jealous of Melanie. I'd been fine with Antoine needing an assistant. I'd been fine when he hired a young and frankly quite good-looking woman. I'd even been fine when I'd realized that she looked like a younger, slightly prettier version of me, from her curly sandy-brown hair to her slightly-too-long feet. I'd gotten an odd vibe off Melanie. A vibe I recognized. A "you're in my way" vibe. Well, I wasn't in her way anymore. Or I hadn't been until Antoine decided to come to Grand Lake and tape a segment on my popcorn shop for his television show. I knocked a third time. Hard. This time, the door swung open with a quiet shushing sound as it scraped along the carpet. Melanie must not have latched it all the way. "Melanie?" I called through the open door. "It's Rebecca. I'm here for our meeting." The meeting you called. I wasn't even all that thrilled about the reason for the meeting. A few weeks before, my ex-husband, Antoine, had walked in on someone threatening to shoot me and had run the other way faster than you can burn garlic. While he kept explaining to me that he'd been running to get help, we both knew the truth. He was a big fat French chicken. He was also, however, a big fat French chicken with a seriously influential television show. A show that was watched by tens of thousands of people across the nation. A show that had launched Antoine's successful line of pasta sauces. A show that could launch my little gourmet popcorn shop into the stratosphere. To make up for leaving me to be gunned down in the lighthouse where my father proposed to my mother and where I received my first French kiss, Antoine had offered to feature my breakfast bars and popcorn fudge on his television show. Antoine clearly somehow thought this might win me back, but I'd been done with him since before he'd left me staring down the very black cold tunnel of a gun. Now I was beyond done. So done you couldn't even stick a fork in me. The starstruck culinary school student who had run off with the man who taught her to make a bŽchamel sauce that could make gods weep existed no longer. In her place was a grown-ass woman who knew it was stupid to turn down free publicity even when it came from her ex-husband who was angling for with something in return. No one answered from inside the hotel room. I hesitated for a moment on the threshold and then walked into the hotel room, Sprocket at my side. Having my dog with me made me feel brave. Otherwise, I wasn't in the habit of marching into hotel rooms. "Melanie," I called again. "I'm here for the meeting." It was a typical hotel room, maybe a little larger than most. It had a queen-sized bed, a desk, a dresser, a small couch. The bed was made. Clothes were strewn across the couch in the sitting area. Papers covered the desk. No Melanie, though. I turned in a slow circle. The bathroo