The Moringa Alibi

The tea was a gift. The gift was a murder. And everyone at the table has an alibi - which is exactly what the killer planned. A culinary cozy mystery with recipes. Retired opera diva Monique Dubois has spent a delicious winter on the island of Djerba, Tunisia: perfecting her harissa-honey brik, arguing happily with the local herbalist, and hosting the best dinner parties on the coast. Then her friend Dr. Adele Fontaine - wellness guru, newspaper crusader, and the island's most inconvenient woman - collapses at Monique's own table, mid-toast, over a glass of her beloved moringa tea. The police make an arrest within the fortnight. There's even a confession - tearful, detailed, and completely sincere. There's just one problem. Monique was watching that dinner party the way she once watched an opera from the wings, and the confession doesn't match the performance. The poison wasn't in a cup. It was in the leaves. And if the tea was deadly days before it ever reached her table, then the murder didn't happen at the party at all - which means every single alibi on this island is answering the wrong question. Someone built the perfect alibi. Monique intends to find out why it's too perfect. Armed with fifty years of reading liars across the footlights, a formidable herbalist with a jeweler's loupe, a guilt-ridden influencer with an unposted video, one reluctant police officer, and Kahlusha - a black cat with impeccable timing and the ethics of a pickpocket - Monique follows the trail from a smudged courier label to a brand that doesn't exist, while oleander blooms innocently over every garden wall on Djerba... and someone starts leaving her messages in cut flowers. In this book you'll find: - A twisty, fair-play whodunit you can solve alongside Monique - if you're watching the right evening - A sun-drenched Mediterranean island escape: souks, spice stalls, whitewashed villas, and festival lanterns - A sleuth of a certain age with a sharp tongue, a warm heart, and a cat who finds things - Clean, clever mystery - no gore, no cliffhangers, no bad language > The Moringa Alibi is Book Two of the Monique Dubois Mysteries, the destination cozy series where every book brings a new island, a new dish, and a new impossible crime. It can be read entirely on its own - but fans of The Tzatziki Twist will find some familiar whiskers waiting. Pour something safe, find a sunny chair, and join the island's finest detective. The alibi is served.