Val Deniston left New York and moved to the fictional town of Bayport on Maryland’s Eastern Shore to live with her grandfather, Don “Granddad” Maguire. She took over the cafe at the local athletic club and started helping her grandfather with his newspaper recipe column, where every dish uses five ingredients or fewer.
Val is practical and observant. She came to Bayport to regroup after things fell apart in New York, and she found a community that suited her better than she expected. Her cafe keeps her connected to the town’s residents, which means she hears things — and when someone dies under suspicious circumstances, she has both the information and the inclination to look into it.
Her partnership with her grandfather is the core of the series. Granddad is opinionated, stubborn, and occasionally reckless in his investigating. Val provides the steadier head, though she has her own tendency to push further than is strictly safe. Together they make an effective amateur detective team, even when they disagree on methods.
Reading Order
See the complete A Five-Ingredient Mystery reading order for all books in the series.