A Bitter End

When a feared food critic comes to Nueva Vida, every chef in town holds their breath. This reviewer has destroyed careers with a single scathing article, and now they're here to pass judgment on the local dining scene.

But someone has already delivered their own verdict—served with a final course of poison.

The critic is found dead after what should have been a career-making tasting menu, killed by a bitter compound so expertly disguised that only a culinary master could have pulled it off. With every local chef now a suspect—including Eliza's friend Alistair—she's forced to investigate a world where professional rivalries run deep and grudges are served ice cold.

As Eliza digs into the critic's trail of ruined restaurants and broken dreams, she discovers that in the cutthroat world of fine dining, some people will kill for a good review... and others will kill to prevent a bad one.