Friday, August 9, 2019

The Quiche and the Dead (A Pie Town Mystery #1)

Author: Kirsten Weiss
Genre:   Mystery

Mass Market Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #:  9781496708960
Kensington Publishing
288 Pages
$7.99; $5.99 Amazon
October 31, 2017



Owning her own business seemed like a pie in the sky to Valentine Harris when she moved to the coastal California town of San Nicholas, expecting to start a new life with her fiancé.  Five months - and a broken engagement - later, at least her dream of opening a pie shop has become a reality.  But when one of her regulars keels over at the counter while eating a quiche, Val feels like she's living a nightmare.

After the police determine the customer was poisoned, business at Pie Town drops faster than a fallen crust.  Convinced they're both suspects, Val's flaky, seventy-something pie crust maker Charlene drags her boss into some amateur sleuthing.  At first Val dismisses Charlene's half-baked hypotheses, but before long the ladies uncover some shady dealings hidden in fog-bound San Nicolas.  Now Val must expose the truth - before a crummy killer tries to shut her pie hole.

✽✽✽✽✽✽✽✽

When Valentine Harris opens her new pie shop, she's happy to do so, but also worried about the bills that need to be paid.  She has an elderly regular customer named Joe who owns a comic book shop next door, and a pie crust maker named Charlene who's also in her seventies.

She's made a quiche for a new shop owner who refuses it, but Joe eats some and passes out on the floor.  When the police investigate, they assume it is homicide and close the shop.  Charlene, who had a past with the dead man, bribes Val to help her investigate.  Val does so because she knows that she doesn't have a choice if she wants her shop to open again and be successful.  But there's a killer on the loose, and if they find out she's looking, she might not live long enough to open up again anyway...

Well, I didn't even get through the first chapter before I knew this book would be a no-go.  When I read the first paragraph of the book, I was stumped.  Val has a quiche in her hands, of which she is holding by wearing oven mitts.  Then, in the next sentence, she is putting that same quiche inside a glass display case.  One would think that if she's using oven mitts, the quiche is hot (because why would she wear them otherwise?  Mitts are unwieldy.)  Therefore, one must come to the conclusion that she is putting a just-from-the-oven hot quiche into a cold glass display case.  There are a possible two things that can happen: either the hot quiche will crack and/or break the case, or, at the very least, cause it to fog up the case and get everything else in there soggy.  This is an error that should have been caught the minute the words were put to paper.  After that paragraph, I struggled with the decision whether to keep reading this book or not.  Unfortunately, I made the wrong decision.  I kept reading.

Why does every author think all seniors wear track suits?  I have a 93-year-old aunt who doesn't even own one.  In fact, the only time I've ever seen a senior wear one is when they're out power-walking, and that's not even very often.  Mostly, they dress just like everyone else.  Trust me, there are a lot of seniors where I live, and if they wear track suits, they sure don't wear them in public.

Then, the woman who works the cash register, Petronella, is a smoker.  In a pie shop.  I don't know if the author knows it, but smokers reek.  It's on their clothing, and you can tell when they're standing behind you or even if they pass you in a store.  It's not a smell that can be disguised.  If I was waited on even once by a smoker, I probably wouldn't go back to that establishment.  Sorry.  Just telling it like I see it.

Then, this is one of the kickers: the new owner of the health food store who moved in after Val was already there, comes by to demand she change the sign outside on the building.  Because it offends her.  Huh.  She. Demands. That. Val. Remove. Her. Sign. And. Change. Her. Logo.  Considering the pie shop was there first, did Heidi not see that before she rented her space?  Nope, wouldn't stand up in a court of law.  So yeah, the book was pretty much over for me at that point.  A new record.  Done with the book on the second page.

But then, I still decided to read on...which was a big mistake.  The guy dies in her shop, and the police arrive.  They tell her it was homicide.  Immediately.  By looking at the body of a man who hadn't been shot or stabbed or strangled.  No outward appearance of trauma.  A man in his seventies.  The cops just decide it was a homicide and close the shop.  How did the detective know it wasn't a heart attack?  How could he tell it was a homicide just by looking at him?  He hadn't been on the floor very long, so rigor hadn't even set in.  Nope, I'm not buying it.

When you have this many glaring errors in the first chapter alone, I don't want to read the book.  So I was done.  But, being a reader, I went to the back of the book to see who the murderer was, and I wish I hadn't.

This next is hidden because it contains a part of the ending, although it does not contain the name of the killer or motive, it is something else entirely that bothered me and made me grateful I did not finish this book:

I discovered there was animal cruelty. The killer threw the cat into the boat hard enough where the cat hit the boat. If Frederick had been a dog and the killer threw it, would people me more upset? Well, cats are just as loving as dogs, and deserve to be treated well. This angered me intensely and I will never read another book by this author (whom, I might add, has a habit of cats in her books being less than stellar creatures). Animal cruelty is never okay, and cats are just as deserving of love and respect as dogs.

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