Pass the Cyanide

PRAISE FOR PASS THE CYANIDE

‘A cleverly plotted set of shorts; dark, gritty – and food themed! Highly recommended!’

The Wishing Shelf

Tied together with sprinkles of food and beverage details, the short stories… depict imaginative murder mysteries with a varying range of motives that act as the spice in these quick, but engaging tales.

IndieReader Discovery

'I am addicted to these gruesome and yet utterly compelling stories and cannot get enough of them.'

Zoe's Book Nook

'A collection of eight stories with all the circumstances and momentum of the wildly entertaining mystery & crime noir.'

Reedsy Discovery review

‘As promised, this was a delicious little serving of bite-size mayhem!’

BookSirens review

‘This has GOT to be my favourite book of short stories of all times!!! Absolutely LOVED IT!!!’

Bookworm 86

'For those with an appetite for dark and twisted mysteries, Pass the Cyanide is a literary feast not to be missed.'

Review Thick & Thin

PASS THE CYANIDE

COOKING WITH CYANIDE

BOOK 2

KARMEN ŠPILJAK

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © Karmen Špiljak 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

For more information, address: karmen@karmenspiljak.com

First Edition, November 2023

Cover design by Miladinka Milic

www.karmenspiljak.com

Paperback ISBN: 978-86-905336-1-9

Ebook ISBN: 978-86-905336-0-2

For all who translate food into love

CONTENTS

Foreword

SHORT STORIES

Ernest's Choice

A Little Revenge

A Stroke of Luck

Seventeen Minutes

The Feast

The Secret Sauce

Sweet darkness

Marcel

THE RECIPES

Before you start cooking

Beetroot carpaccio

Kathy's potato salad

Alysen's famous waffles

Evening Sunrise

The Sting

Leek scramble

Peach Caipirinha

Jeffrey's Sauce

Acknowledgments

Before you leave

Book Club Questions

About the Author

More by the Author

Also by Karmen Špiljak

Library of Emotions

CIP catalogue number

FOREWORD

When in 2021 I decided to write a book for myself, I hadn’t imagined it would be the start of a series. Add Cyanide to Taste was to be my lovechild, a quirky collection to appease my appetite for dark foodie stories and the dishes in them. It was the first book I wrote entirely for my own pleasure, which is perhaps why I braced myself before launching it into the void.

The responses, however, have been nothing short of enthusiastic. Old friends and acquaintances sent me messages about buying and reading the book, book bloggers made me blush with their praise and one of them even created a recipe based on one of the stories. In 2022, my lovechild won the IndieReader Discovery Award for short stories and pretty much moved out, travelled the world, made some new friends and bragged to me about it on an occasional postcard.

As envious as I was about my lovechild’s new life, I was also immensely proud and happy to see this eclectic collection find new readers. Sometimes, these readers would send me messages or share their reviews, which always made my day. Other times, I’d get a message from the producer of one of my favourite podcasts ever, LeVar Burton Reads, asking to license one of my stories.

Reader, I was ecstatic.

The lovechild has changed my life. It’s introduced me to new friends and shown me that people enjoy foodie related crime fiction. I’d changed my writing process and got more engaged with my readers.

Sometimes after meeting a reader, they’ll politely enquire how can such a nice lady write such frightening stories. In the same breath, they told me they especially enjoyed the story in which a betrayed wife kills her husband and uses him as a fertiliser. Reader, I’m not sure which one of us was more terrified.

Throughout this, new ideas for foodie crime kept popping up, disregarding my yearly plans and schedule. You see, I hadn’t intended on writing another collection of culinary noir any time soon. But as any writer will tell you, stories often make their own plans – which is exactly what happened here.

I was writing another book when a book blogger asked for a sequel to Add Cyanide to Taste. It was a fun question to ponder, and I realised not only that I wanted to write one but that I wanted to do it right away. This happened roughly around the same time as the artificial intelligence craze in writing began. I was curious and asked it to draft a blurb for this book. It did so remarkably well, however its plot ideas for culinary noir were much less interesting and I ended up coming up with my own.

For those who require trigger warnings, expect murder, non-graphic violence and profanity. I’ve asked my characters to play nicely and swear less but I’m afraid they didn’t listen. So here we are with a bunch of misbehaving characters and crime scenes that refuse to be cosy and prefer to stay in the noir.

Pass the Cyanide is the second book in the Cooking with Cyanide series and most likely the final nail in the coffin of my dinner parties. People have grown suspicious of my questions about their food preferences and allergies. Despite all that I don’t seem to be able to stop writing these stories.

I assure you that I keep my poison for the stories and that I really am a nice middle-aged lady who loves food. But then again, I would say that, wouldn’t I?

Bon Appétit!

Karmen

SHORT STORIES

ERNEST'S CHOICE

It was supposed to bring him back, not drive him insane.

Lights on the sleek cooking device blinked at him. The darkness added a sinister tone to it, but pulling up the shutters would risk attracting the attention of the journalists that were prowling around his house, stealing his rubbish. As much as this sudden interest in his life flattered him, Ernest would rather die than allow his secret to come out.

What kind of a celebrity chef hides in his office? It was all because of the E-chef. Every time the damn appliance let out that annoying ping to alert him it was time to add another ingredient, Ernest’s self-respect wailed. At first, he’d got excited and tried to guess the ingredient that was going to appear on the E-chef’s screen, but it had started to wear him down. The damn thing was supposed to rescue his career, not hijack it.

Every single dish the E-chef created had outsold Ernest’s signature dishes and pushed them off the menu. True, the new dishes had put him back on the culinary map, but the mystery of his renewed success was making people snoop around his house.

A gentle knock on the door broke his chain of thoughts.

‘Mr Herero, can I have a moment?’

‘Give me a second, Alice.’

To be on the safe side, Ernest threw a thick cloth over the E-chef, though this didn’t completely kill the red and green lights on its screen. Swiftly, he left the office and closed the door behind him, almost hitting his sous-chef in the face.

He blinked at her. ‘You can’t possibly be done with the testing.’

Alice smiled, coaxing a curl behind her ear. ‘I’ve got a few more to do, nothing to worry about.’

Ernest’s jaw tightened. Why was she bothering him when she knew he was busy?

‘Is this about Louise M Peters, then?’

‘No, nothing like that. I wondered… Could we discuss my remuneration. We’ve said we would⁠—’

‘This isn’t a good time, Alice. I have to focus.’

She made her eyes big. He hated when she did that. It made it harder for him to stick to his thoughts, especially since she’d started to wear the tight-fitting V-neck shirts.

‘What day would be best, you reckon?’

He straightened his back. ‘Let’s park this for now, okay?’

‘If we could just set a date⁠—’

‘We’ll do that after next week, alright?’

‘It’s just that we’ve already said⁠—’

‘Not now, Alice. You know I’m on a deadline.’ He clasped the door handle. ‘If there’s nothing else…’

She hesitated for a second before shaking her head.

‘Good. That’s sorted then.’

He waited for her to walk away before going back into the office. With clammy fingers, he pulled the cloth off the E-chef and turned to his espresso machine. There was a device that actually made life better by producing a delicious dark shot of bitter happiness. He added sugar and was about to take a sip when the E-chef pinged. Downing his espresso, Ernest sucked in his stomach and checked the screen.

‘Are you flippin’ nuts?’ Raking his fingers over his receding hairline, he squinted to check he hadn’t misread the instructions.

Add 1 tsp of red miso, a pinch of sugar and 1/2 tsp of chilli flakes. Stir and let cook another 3 minutes on a low heat.

‘I don’t cook with chilli, you twat,’ he hissed.

How could a machine that had intelligence in its design be so stupid at the same time? The mere thought of spicing up his dishes was absurd. He had zero tolerance for heat. It was like asking a vegetarian to season their dishes with bacon!

Leaning forward, Ernest tapped ‘dismiss’, followed by ‘generate new’. He craned his neck, searching for a way to exclude an ingredient. The underlying principles of his cuisine were sacred, even if his beloved team would gladly gobble down any concoction created by this infernal machine, spicy or not. Every new dish brought more praise. If they only knew it was a machine, not him, creating them. He’d pushed the boundaries to test if anyone in his team would baulk, but no one did. Not only that, they loved the new stuff. They bloody loved it!

The E-chef pinged once more, sending a wave of unease through this gut. The devilish device was far too efficient for its own good. What did it want this time? That he should substitute chilli with cayenne pepper?

‘No, no, no!’

Ernest slumped into his chair. This damn machine was going to end him. It churned and churned and despite its absurd speed, it hadn’t given him a single solid idea of what to serve Louise M Peters. He had less than a week left, and he couldn’t serve a spicy dish to a distinguished food critic, no matter how original a beetroot miso soup with chilli might sound. How about a beetroot miso soup without chilli? With a dollop of sour cream and dill?

His thoughts darkened. It wasn’t the first time he’d wanted to administer a fatal blow to the infernal device and reduce it to scraps of metal and plastic. As satisfying as the thought was, he still needed the E-chef. But the longer he held onto it, the less the world needed him. What was worse, the E-chef had destroyed his joy in cooking. No more luxurious moments of creation. All he did these days was press buttons. Was he even still a chef? He felt more like a secretary. And a bloody liar.

None of that would have happened if it wasn’t for Nommy. His former student turned archenemy, who’d made his fortune not by the virtue of his food but by driving it around. And to think how he’d laughed when Nommy launched his contact-free meal delivery! Laughed and mocked him in front of the team. A few weeks later, Nommy was a rich man.

It wasn’t as though Ernest was waiting for a miracle, far from it, but between having to pay a mortgage and keeping his staff on full pay, he’d to make some unpopular choices. Choices that had caused his best cooks to flock to Nommy’s. Once the pandemic waned, Ernest was worse off than when he first started. Rumours surfaced that Nommy wanted to buy him out. That’s when he scrapped the leftovers, took a loan and turned things around.

And look at him now.

Ernest caressed the casing of the E-chef. He’d been unfair. Without this gadget, infernal or not, he would have lost his business. Technically, he could stop using it, but his team would wonder what had happened. They loved the new speed of work, a speed he couldn’t keep up on his own.

As long as he was sure the E-chef was a bespoke deal, and the overpriced consultant he’d hired stuck to the Non-Disclosure Agreement, things were going to be alright. But if one more guest dared to tell him how much they looooved his new recipes, how they were a hundred times better than his old ones, he was going to stab them with a fork.

All he needed to do was keep the E-chef a secret for the rest of his life.

The rest. Of. His. Life?

A vein in Ernest’s head throbbed as he made himself another espresso, adding two spoons of sugar. Caffeine sharpened his focus. It was the only thing that worked. Perhaps that could be the new secret ingredient for the dish he was going to serve next week. What would Louise M Peters think of a steak in a coffee-infused barbecue sauce? Or better yet, coffee-infused chocolate sauce?

He had one shot to redeem his restaurant in the eyes the prickly food critic. This time, Louise M Peters’ review wouldn’t reduce him to tears, he’d make sure of it. Otherwise, he might as well lock up his business and throw away the key.

He tapped the E-chef’s casing. ‘Come on, pal. Let’s do this.’

He was stuck with this thing for better or for worse. Unless, of course…

His eyes widened as the caffeine kicked in. Could he do that?

The idea was bonkers, though no more than having to hide in his office with the E-chef for the rest of his life.

If his plan succeeded, he’d be free to do what he wanted. On his own terms. But he’d have to proceed with the utmost care. Overlooking as much as a single detail could cost him more than his business.

Emily tipped the rubbish bag over the spread of old newspapers on the floor. What a mess! When she’d dreamed about breaking a big story, she hadn’t imagined trawling through people’s rubbish. But Ernest’s Choice had been dominating the news for weeks and she’d reported