Genre: Mystery
Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9780451415080
Obsidian Mystery
304 Pages
$7.99; $2.99 Amazon
August 6, 2013
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Trixie is in need of a fresh start away from her cheating ex-husband, but she may be biting off more than she can chew when she moves to upstate New York to run her family's famed Silver Bullet Diner. Not only is she caught off guard by the small town's resident heartthrob, Deputy Ty Brisco, but her first health inspection turns into a nightmare...when the inspector keels over into his blue plate special.
Someone made a deadly addition to an old family recipe, and Trixie is determined to find out whodunit. But between serving up orders and sniffing out clues, she'd better watch her back - or her next meal might be her last.
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Trixie Matkowski is recently divorced and has moved to a small town in upstate New York, where she's purchased her widowed aunt's diner, home, and vacation cottages. She plans on running the diner just as her family has done for generations, and renting out the cabins every summer to tourists.
But when she checks the mail, she sees a notice that states the health inspector is due that very day, and heads over to diner to see if she can fix the small infractions that were listed. But it seems as if the inspector has already arrived...and left permanently. He's dead, and it seems her daily special has killed him.
But Trixie notices that there are mushrooms in the mix, and her special doesn't contain mushrooms. Now it's up to Deputy Ty Brisco and the rest of the police department to figure out who poisoned the man and why. But Trixie knows if it isn't found out soon, her diner may close forever...
I really wanted to like this book, but Trixie - and Ty - grated on my nerves. Trixie is newly divorced and it seems had no problem walking away from her cheating husband while selling him every single thing that she owns. Really? The girlfriend got her husband, but she also gets the house and all the antiques she's acquired in ten years of marriage and, even though Trixie got paid nicely for it, she has no problem handing over her entire life - and husband - to another woman? This just doesn't ring true. There was nothing she wanted to keep? Nothing that mattered more than money? She didn't have any feelings about him cheating and just handed over everything? She seems odd right off the bat.
Then, her aunt sells her the diner and leaves. She doesn't spend any time with her showing her how everything works, who the employees are, how she pays the bills/employees, etc. Obviously her aunt doesn't care if the diner fails, because she doesn't care if Trixie knows how to run it. The cook is a hysterical nut job, the handymen royal jerks. The two waitresses make goo-goo eyes at Ty and ignore everyone else when he's around. (There must be a dearth of handsome men in this town). Her aunt and Juanita have things in common - when a new cook is hired, Juanita bails on her without showing her the ropes.
Then, because she's afraid of losing customers, she starts giving away coffee and food. I guess she has no idea what profits are, either. She must have gotten a lot of money from turning over her home and possessions to her ex-husband.
But I really lost interest when it was painfully obvious that Trixie had just been running the diner for about an hour and Ty accuses her of murder. Oh, sure. She had no idea who the health inspector was, had no feelings of hatred for him, but decided to kill him because he was going to give her a bad rating. Yeah, that's believable. I'm stunned that this man barely meets her and decides she's capable of murdering someone she's never met. I guess he figures because she's new in town she must be guilty.
At any rate, the book lost me at that point, and I really, really like mysteries and try to give them a chance. But these things caused me to lose enjoyment in the book, and therefore, in the entire series. Sorry, but I couldn't like it and see no reason to read any others in the series.
https://www.amazon.com/Do-Diner-Comfort-Food-Mystery/dp/0451415086/ref=
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2733350107
More on Christine Wenger's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/christine-wenger/
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