Isabelle "Betts" Winston teaches cooking at her grandmother's cooking school, Gram's Country Cooking School, located in Broken Rope, Missouri. The history of Broken Rope is well-known - outlaws, bank robbers, hangings, etc. Tourists come all summer to take in the history and see the re-enactments that bring the history alive. To kick off the tourist season, the Southern Missouri Showdown cook-off takes place, which showcases the cooking students' best dishes.

As the students gear up for the Showdown, the best-laid plans are thrown for a loop when a body is discovered in the supply closet of the cooking school. Even worse, the man's widow accuses Gram of having killed him. While Gram and Everett Morningside, owner of the local theater, were seemingly close friends, no one believes that Gram actually killed him... until she is arrested.

While Betts isn't a legal eagle, she is a law school drop- out, so she knows her way around an investigation. She's also savvy enough to hire the town's most intelligent and assertive attorney to represent her grandmother while she's under investigation. But since she isn't bound by the letter of the law, she's free to use her own investigative techniques. Aided by her best friend Jake (the town's unofficial archivist) and Jerome (who happens to be a ghost), she's determined to prove that her grandmother is no cold-blooded killer.

When Betts and Jake become victims of a shooting incident and other random acts of violence, they think they must be on the right track. But they want to must find the killer before Gram's reputation is unfairly smeared or their lives are further endangered. But in their small town, who could possibly be a cold-blooded killer?

IF FRIED CHICKEN COULD FLY is such a fun mystery that I couldn't put it down. It originally appealed to me on several levels - I was raised in Missouri, and my mom is a retired cooking teacher. The ghost character threw me for a loop, but by the end of the book, I had really warmed to him and I hope to see him again. All of the characters in this book were relateable, realistic, and full of Missouri charm. The mystery itself was intriguing and the plot moved along at a nice pace. I look forward to reading the next books in the Country Cooking School Mystery series.

Book Summary

At Gram's Country Cooking School, Betts and Gram are helping students prepare the perfect dishes for the Southern Missouri Show-Down, the cook-off that draws the first of the summer visitors. Everything is going smoothly until they discover the body of local theater owner Everett Morningside in the school's supply closet, and Everett's widow points an accusatory finger at Gram. Now, Betts has to dig deep into Broken Rope's history to find the modern-day killer-before the last piece of chicken is served...