To Have and to Kill (21 page)

Piper’s Simple Buttercream Icing

4 sticks (2 cups) softened unsalted butter

8 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

In a large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the softened butter for 3 minutes. Add the confectioners’ sugar, beating slowly. Then add the vanilla and beat on a higher setting until the buttercream is fluffy and very light.

This recipe makes 7 cups of icing. To cover a three-tiered wedding cake, serving 100 people, make the recipe five times.

Acknowledgments

W
hen I was young, my mother made cakes for the neighborhood kids. As each birthday approached, the children perused the Wilton cake-decorating book and picked a favorite. The cakes didn’t always turn out exactly like the ones in the pictures, but they were close enough and we were thrilled.

Just as a certain number of eggs or cups of sugar is essential in a cake recipe, there are various ingredients that go into concocting a book. Without the right resources, it would be impossible to come up with a story that hangs together and forms something consumable. Here are the people who added to the first Wedding Cake Mystery:

Always, there is Father Paul Holmes. He offered support, encouragement, creativity, and attention to detail throughout the writing process. Paul embraced the new series, even though wedding cakes are a world away from broadcast news. I appreciate that he was so game and continues to be so loyal.

It took a long time to settle on a title, but Facebook friends Mattie Piela and Linda Rutledge came to the rescue with
To Have and to Kill
. Susan Carroll suggested that a marriage proposal at the Hayden Planetarium would be very romantic. Thank you, ladies.

Research can be delightful. Wilton cake-decorating course instructor Dena Gaglioti taught me how to fashion flowers, shells, hearts, and stars from icing. What fun!

A trip to the New Jersey Library for the Blind and Handicapped led me to wonderful Ottilie Lucas. She is an inspiration. Ottilie guided me as I began to dream up a character with visual impairment. Her reaction to my first chapter on Terri Donovan and macular degeneration encouraged me to go forward.

Lee Cohen, Esq., is the inspiration for Vin Donovan. Like Vin, Lee assembled a beginner’s first-aid kit when he was five years old and has been preparing for emergencies ever since. Lee was so generous with his time, sharing his knowledge and experiences as well as coming up with plausible scenarios. He got me thinking about things that I had never really considered before. Lee, you could write your own book!

Elizabeth Higgins Clark helped with Piper Donovan’s voice. An actress herself, Elizabeth filled me in, countless times, on theatrical protocol and machinations. She also made sure that Piper sounded like a twenty-seven-year-old and not like the middle-aged woman who developed her. Ah, come to think of it, I developed Elizabeth as well. She’s my daughter.

Jennifer Rudolph Walsh and Joni Evans, you both know what you do for me. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Carrie Feron, Michael Morrison, Liate Stehlik, Lynn Grady, Sharyn Rosenblum, Tessa Woodward, Shawn Nicholls, Bobby Brinson, Virginia Stanley, and the dedicated people at William Morrow/HarperCollins got the series up and running. I know there are so many, unnamed here, who contributed their talents. Please know that I very much appreciate all your hard work.

Finally, my deep gratitude to my readers, for your loyalty over the years . . . and for being willing, now, to give something new a shot.

About the Author

Like Piper Donovan,
New York Times
bestselling author
MARY JANE CLARK
has a mother who made customized cakes for the neighborhood kids when Mary Jane was growing up. After a career at CBS News and writing twelve media thrillers, the author is currently taking cake-decorating classes herself, having fun as she works on her baking skills and concocts her next novel.

Also by Mary Jane Clark

Dying for Mercy

It Only Takes a Moment

When Day Breaks

Lights Out Tonight

Dancing in the Dark

Hide Yourself Away

Nowhere to Run

Nobody Knows

Close to You

Let Me Whisper in Your Ear

Do You Promise Not to Tell?

Do You Want to Know a Secret?

Credits

Jacket design by James Iacobelli

Jacket photography © by Amy Lundstrom/Alamy

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

TO HAVE AND TO KILL
. Copyright © 2011 by Mary Jane Clark. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition January 2011 ISBN: 9780062036469

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