Ted Constantino is assistant manager (read troubleshooter) of Galaxy Foods supermarket in Seattle. The store is owned by patriarch Karl Krogstad, and the entire Krogstad family is involved in running it. That even includes insufferable grandson Lance, recent recipient of a degree in food management, earlier recipient of the title of The Slowest Checker in the History of the Retail Grocery Business.The Krogstad offspring have always expected to inherit this million-dollar business when old Karl departs these shores (he'll never retire). But to their alarm and disgust, old Karl has just become engaged to a rather flamboyant lady thirty years his junior. ("Everyone thinks she's after his money." "Gee, I wonder how they got that idea?")Ted is used to dealing with such crises as the imminent downfall of an elderly customer on a walker heading straight for a pool of spilled salad oil. But when the Krogstad family quarrels reach the ultimate stage of dysfunction - murder - he is faced with the consequences of a dead body on the selling floor.The author knows the quirks of this business first hand, from the obsessions of the fish-and-seafood manager to the disastrous effect of a yellow-green awning over the produce, and uses them with marvelous skill. This funny, lovely mystery will strike a chord in everyone who has ever shopped in a supermarket. Read Less