Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Audio CD; Digital Book; Audiobook
ISBN #: 978 0425259559; 9781541452091
Berkley Publishing
304 Pages
$7.98; $23.76; $5.99 Amazon
July 1, 2014
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Food Preneurs, one of the hottest cooking shows on TV, has decided to feature Jewel Bay, Montana in an upcoming episode, and everyone in town is preparing for their close-ups, including the crew at the Glacier Mercantile, aka the Merc. Not only is Erin busy remodeling her courtyard into a relaxing dining area, she's organizing a steak-cooking competition between three of Jewel Bay's hottest chefs to be featured on the program.
But Erin's plans get scorched when one of the contending cooks is found dead. With all the drama going on behind the scenes, it's hard to figure out who didn't have a motive to off the saucy contestant. Now, to keep the town's reputation from crashing and burning on national television, Erin will have to grill some suspects to smoke out the killer...
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Erin Murphy is always looking for ways to bring people into Jewel Bay, Montana - and has found a TV crew willing to do a show centering on local chefs. But there seems to be a problem when two of the chefs submit similar recipes. So they are asked to re-submit recipes and everything seems to be going fine, that is until the producer of the show, Stacia Duval, is killed in a hit-and-run accident and Erin's the one to find her body.
But then things start not adding up, the first being why was Stacia out alone at night in heels walking in an unfamiliar area? But it's not until one of the chefs is also killed that Erin realizes there's a murderer afoot and she needs to get involved, even if the local sheriff doesn't think she should. These are her people, her friends, and she's not about to allow a killer run loose among them without trying to find him or her. Even if it puts her right in the middle of the killer's line of sight...
I will say that I liked this book much better than the first. Unfortunately, the first was so mish-mash that I just couldn't get into it at all. This time out the plot is much better, although I still think that too much attention is paid to food. Yes, I get that it's a "Food Lovers' Village Mystery" but it seems every other page is someone eating something. Do we really care about someone making jam or huckleberry truffles? If it's a cookbook I do, but not in a mystery novel. Anyway...
The only other things that bothered me was the "whabouts" column (wouldn't it be easier just to use 'where' or even '?' - it would make more sense and 'whabout' isn't cute; and what on earth does 'get my jell-o up' mean? Who says something like that? I've never heard it before and have no idea. It was annoying to say the least. I also didn't guess how Erin could figure out things the police couldn't. Her friend Kim seemed to have really nothing to do in this book, and neither did Kyle, Rick or Adam. The big thing that grates on me is why she calls her mother by her first name. Again, (as I've stated before) she's her mother. She's not the first parent anyone has worked with. Does she think by saying 'Mom' people will think she's at the Merc through nepotism? It doesn't make sense at all. Why would she even want to call her anything but Mom?
Other than that, it was an interesting read and I fairly enjoyed it; enough to go on to the third in the series. When the ending came and everything was figured out it all made sense, which is a good thing, and I will read the next in the series. An easy read for a cold evening.
https://www.amazon.com/Crime-Food-Lovers-Village-Mystery/dp/0425259552/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2313091603
More on Leslie Budewitz's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/b/leslie-ann-budewitz/-
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