Leslie Budewitz blends her passion for food, great mysteries, and the Northwest in two cozy mystery series, the Spice Shop mysteries, set in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, and the Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, set in NW Montana. As Alicia Beckman, she writes moody suspense, beginning with Bitterroot Lake (April 2021) and continuing with Blind Faith (October 2022). Leslie is the winner of three Agatha Awards—2013 Best First Novel for Death Al Dente, the first Food Lovers’ Village mystery; 2011 Best Nonfiction, and 2018 Best Short Story, for “All God’s Sparrows,” her first historical fiction. Her work has also won or been nominated for Derringer, Anthony, and Macavity awards. A lawyer and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America and a past president of Sisters in Crime, she lives in NW Montana.