With the help of her resourceful best friend, Adeena Awan, and Amir, Adeena’s lawyer-brother, on the case, Lila hopes to stay out of jail. Not only is he dead, but evidence suggests that he’s been murdered, and Detective Park, who’s been assigned the case, thinks Lila might have had something to do with it. But Derek’s not kidding around, and by the time Lila calls 911, it’s too late. When he ends the meal facedown in his food, Lila admonishes him for being melodramatic. As usual, Derek can’t find anything nice to say in between ravenous bites. Long, the restaurant’s landlord, Lila dreads serving them but can’t resist trying out her latest dessert creation, ube crinkles, on them. And would he keep coming back if the food were bad? When Derek shows up with his stepfather, Mr. After all, curmudgeonly Derek isn’t even a real reviewer he’s just a local boy–turned–man with a computer and a chip on his shoulder from his breakup with Lila years ago.

Maybe Lila Macapagal’s Tita Rosie’s restaurant isn’t the fanciest, but Tita Rosie’s serves up the finest Filipino cuisine in Shady Palms, no matter what online reviewer Derek Winter says. Helping out in her Illinois family’s Filipino restaurant backfires when a young woman is accused of the murder of a restaurant reviewer who happens to be her ex-boyfriend.

Arsenic and adobo author