Author: Sarah Fox
Genre: Mystery
Trade Paperback; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781516110896
Lyrical Press Publishing
204 Pages
$15.95; $5.99 Amazon
August 10, 2021
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This summer, Wildwood Cove is hosting a special event, Wild West Days, to celebrate the town's storied past. Wildwood Cove's museum is also getting a new lease of life thanks to a longtime resident's generous bequest. Several locals, including Marley McKinney-Collins, owner of the Flip Side pancake house, offer to transfer artifacts to the beautiful restored Victorian that will become the museum's home. But there's an unappetizing development when a volunteer, Jane Fassbinder, is found dead -- bludgeoned with an antique clothes iron.
Marley can never resist a piping hot mystery, and this one seems especially intriguing. Jane had recently unearthed some love letters from the Jack of Diamonds, a notorious thief who plagued Wildwood Cove over a century ago. As more locals meet with dangerous "accidents," it seems that someone is determined to keep that correspondence buried deep in the past. And unless Marley can sift through the likely suspects, she too could end up being nothing but history...
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Marley McKinney-Collins owns the Flip Side pancake house, a favorite with locals and tourists alike. She's volunteering to help the historical museum move to their new home, with Jane Fassbender, a volunteer who's temporarily filling the director's position, taking the lead. While helping out, Marley can't help but hear Jane arguing with several locals -- especially Evangeline, who thinks because she has money and her family is from Wildwood Cove, can make better decisions than Jane. It seems that while Marley doesn't have a problem with Jane, others do. But then there's a donation of some old love letters, and it turns out they may be from a notorious thief nicknamed the Jack of Diamonds. Marley wants to know the contents, but she has to settle with Jane telling her that after she reads them first, she will share with Marley.
Then there's the fact that Marley's business is booming, and she needs to hire more help, as she only has two servers and two cooks. She hopes to hire someone soon, since one of her servers will be going off to college. But when Jane is murdered, everything is put on hold. Then one of Marley's employees disappears, and now she's becoming worried, wondering who would hurt her kind employee. Without trying to dig too much into the murder, she wants to help, and the only way to do that is to do some sleuthing herself. As long as she can stay under the radar, a killer won't look at her, right?...
In this latest installment of the Pancake House Mysteries, Marley is making some changes in her life -- some small, some big. But she's determined to make things work. At least until the murder occurs and her employee goes missing. Then she's trying to find answers without upsetting the sheriff, who happens to be her husband Brett's uncle Ray.
I love the fact that Marley doesn't do anything stupid, like breaking and entering, or stealing things that could turn out to be evidence. Anything she finds she shares with Ray. It's smart and keeps her on his good side. She's intelligent enough to reason things out, even if she doesn't put them together right away. (I did before she did, but then again, the clues were there and I knew what I was looking for). Marley asks questions but not intrusively, and tries to keep everyone happy so as not to damage her business reputation. It's a decent quality, and isn't annoying like some protagonists' questions are.
When Marley begins to put everything together, she figures it out almost too late. The reason for the murder becomes apparent, and as it is supposed to be, the murderer is apprehended and there is a good ending all around. There is only one thing that wasn't resolved, but I do hope to see this done in another book. All in all, an enjoyable book that can be read in one night, and worth it. Recommended.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.
More on Sarah Fox's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/f/sarah-fox/
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