When Eliza Hartwell inherits her grandmother's failing bakery in the Cotswolds village of Millbrook, she arrives with three suitcases, a spider plant, and absolutely no idea how to bake. What she finds is a sourdough starter that needs feeding, a journal full of recipes and secrets, and a dead man on the kitchen floor.

Geoffrey Finch, the village postmaster, was a fixture. Everyone knew Geoffrey. Everyone says it the same way, with the same careful inflection, and Eliza notices, because noticing things is what she does, even when she'd rather not.

The police want her to stay out of it. The village wants her to mind her own business. But Geoffrey's body was found in her kitchen, in her bakery, and Eliza cannot leave that alone. A coded notebook. A parish council chair who visits at midnight. A retired solicitor who knew her grandmother rather too well. And a back door that was unlocked on the night that mattered.

Her bread is improving. Her questions are making people nervous. And Millbrook is not quite the sleepy village it pretends to be. A Crust of Suspicion is the first book in the Death & Sourdough series. Best served with strong tea and freshly baked bread.