Tannie Maria is wrestling with a fear of the dark, and her hen, Henrietta, has PTSD. But this doesn’t stop this intrepid agony aunt from going undercover with her fiancé, Detective Henk Kannemeyer, to the Karoo Wilderness Reserve. Their mission: to save the vetplantjies.

At the KWR luxury game lodge, they spy on guests and support the Anti-Poaching Unit in a battle against dangerous criminals. Jessie attends the succulent symposium addressing international succulent poaching. Then, there is a murder ...

Our favourite Ladismith sleuths – Maria, Henk, Jessie, Hattie, Reghardt and Piet – engage with a colourful cast of characters, including a barefoot artist, a botanist cowboy, a singing gardener, a shaman, and a san goma. Between spying on tourists, solving murders, writing agony-aunt letters, eating divine food, and having epiphanies, Maria and Henk get fabulous fashion tips from a couturier and his Baroness.

But soon they too will be in the crosshairs …

Who knew a Marilyn Monroe movie could kill you?

When Oom Frik of Oom Frik’s Fantastiques dies during a vintage movie screening in Ladismith, Tannie Maria and her policeman boyfriend Henk are on the scene. Ja, the old thrift-shop owner had a heart condition, but was there more to his demise? It’s rumoured that among Frik’s junk are valuable treasures, and the grumpy, paranoid old guy frequently altered his will. When a second body turns up, there’s a clue: a letter addressed to Tannie Maria asking for advice – and a milk tart recipe.

Fifty-plus agony-aunt Maria and feisty young journalist Jessie conduct their own treasure hunt and murder investigation. The police are looking for the perpetrator too, but the amateur detectives have unique skills, and Tannie Maria’s food is a powerful incentive to get people to talk.

Maria and Jessie step into deep danger, but all is not doom and gloom. Spring has arrived in the Karoo, and Henk and Maria discuss moving in together, even though his home is full of his late wife’s stuff. Maria knows food has a way of filling the dark spaces, for better or for worse. Perhaps, once the Klein Karoo crime-buster’s work is done, she might follow her own advice and try a healing recipe.

Tannie Maria might be the Karoo’s favourite agony aunt, but when it comes to matters of her own heart, she doesn’t have all the answers.

Why is she having trouble telling her beau – the dashing Detective Henk Kannemeyer with the chestnut moustache – that she loves him? There are other, more pressing problems too. A tall, dark stranger zoomed in on her Ducati motorbike: she is Zabanguni Kani, a journalist renowned for her political exposés, who, after receiving threats, must move in with Tannie Maria for safety. Who could tell that a trip to the country’s northern borders was on the cards?

The journey will plunge Maria and her friends into pools of danger, amid water maidens, murders, and Harley Davidsons. Ladismith’s famous crime fighter is back – with a tin of buttermilk rusks in hand – to restore eace from the Klein Karoo to the great Limpopo River.

Everybody’s favourite agony aunt and crime fighter Tannie Maria needs some counselling advice of her own. Lingering troubles from a previous marriage still sit heavy on her, while fresh worries about Slimkat, a local man whose fight for his people’s land threatens his life, keep her up at night. Tannie Maria seeks out counsellor, jokily known to all as “the satanic mechanic”. Straight out of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and from hot-as-hell Hotazel, Ricus fixes both cars and people.

But Maria’s counselling tune-up switches gears when a murder flings her straight into Detective Henk Kannemeyer’s investigation. Not only is she dating the dashing Henk, she now has to work beside him: a potential recipe for disaster.

Blending an intriguing mystery with characters as lovable as the setting of the rural Klein Karoo, this book is Sally Andrew’s delightful, warm-hearted sequel to Recipes for Love and Murder.

Meet Tannie Maria: the loveable writer of recipes in her local paper, the Klein Karoo Gazette.

One Sunday morning, as Maria stirs apricot jam, she hears her editor Harriet on the stoep. What Maria doesn't realise is that Harriet is about to deliver a whole basketful of challenges and the first ingredient in two new recipes - recipes for love and murder.

A delicious blend of intrigue, milk tart and friendship, join Tannie Maria in her first investigation. Consider your appetite whetted for a whole new series of mysteries . . .