A Michael Spraggue Mystery. Famed theater director Arthur Darien's production of "Dracula" is in trouble. Strange and macabre jokes—including a batch of literally mixed Bloody Marys—are unnerving the cast and threatening to close the play before opening night. Michael Spraggue enters the cast, but in a dual role unknown to most of them—Arthur Darien has asked him to solve the mystery of the jokes before the jokes turn deadly. But Spraggue finds that he is not the only actor playing a dual role. Nobody is sticking to the script—and a killer is bent on giving the performance of a lifetime!

Book by Barnes, Linda

He was dead tired, gasping for breath, with aching muscles, blistered feet, and the anonymous note clutched in his sweaty hand. At thirty-five, Michael Spraggue thought he'd put sleuthing behind him to pursue an acting career at the Harvard Rep. Until ex-cop-turned-bodyguard Pete Collatos summons him into the race to track down death threats to his charismatic client, Senator Brian Donagher. The senator is determined to run in the Boston Marathon with Pete at his side. Until Pete dies on the killer course... Suddenly Spraggue is off and running on a track teeming with contenders, up to his jogging shorts in dirty politics and deadly passions. But the closer he gets, the sooner each of his prime suspects hits a dead end. Add a mysterious beauty with a motive for murder, a political kingpin with Mafia connections, and enough hot cash to grease the race to justice, and you have Linda Barnes at her cold-blooded best....

"Barnes builds her plot like a fine pastry, layer by layer." Chicago Sun-Times A Michael Spraggue mystery. When the great chefs of New Orleans stage an elegant banquet, tempers burn hotter than cayenne pepper. Up-and-coming Cajun chef Joseph Fontenot is found with a slender French cooking knife through his heart, and all the evidence points to Dora Levoyer, sublime cook to Boston's wealthhy and eccentric Mary Spraggue Hillman. A guest at the banquet, Mary summons her nephew Michael Spraggue, actor-cum-private detective, to the scene. And soon Spraggue is investigating a murder case that will leave his mouth burning and his mind spinning. One thing is the solution to the murder will make for a spicy mystery indeed!