Author: Elle Brooke White
Genre: Mystery
Hardcover; Digital Book
ISBN #: 9781643855783
Crooked Lane Books
304 Pages
$21.36; $13.99 Amazon
October 21, 2021
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Things are finally growing smoothly on the Finn Family Farm. With the help of caretakers Joe and Alice Wong and farmer Samuel Brown, Charlotte Finn is starting to feel at home at the Santa Barbarta County produce farm she inherited. But all is not strawberries and cream. A blight is destroying young berry plants. Worse, another mysterious death is shaking Little Acorn.
The victim is grizzled, cantankerous Linc Pierce, the only farmer in Little Acorn whose strawberry crop was fruitful. Charlotte and her old friend Beau Mason find him hanging from the rafter, an apparent suicide. But a cursory search turns up a half-eaten sandwich. Who eats before he kills himself?
Chief Goodacre suspects foul play. Her prime suspect is Beau, who exchanged words -- and worse -- with Linc earlier in the day. Meanwhile, Little Acorn's farmers point accusing fingers at one another, recalling Linc's suggestion that someone sabotaged their strawberries. As Charlotte searches for clues to exonerate Beau, she finds something on Linc's workbench not buried in dust. Could this be why Linc's strawberry plants are alive? And, perhaps, why Linc is dead?
Now, if Charlotte and Horse -- the farm's baby pig with a bottomless stomach and an insatiable hunger for sleuthing -- can't root out the murderer, they too, may end up dead and berried.
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Charlotte Finn inherited the Finn Family Farm from her late uncle. At first, she was going to sell it and go back to her job in Chicago, but after being there for a while decided she wanted to stay and make the farm profitable. She's repaired the pond she used to swim in, made additions, and now her best friend Diane Mason is getting ready to open a farm-to-table restaurant on the farm. Her crops are doing well, and she's pleased.
At least until she and Diane's brother Beau go into town and hear some of the other farm owners talking about the strawberry blight. While she doesn't have it herself, she wants to know what is going on. After Beau gets into an altercation with Linc Pierce, they leave. The next day Beau wants to make amends and he and Charlotte go to Linc's farm only to find him dead. While it looks like suicide at first, it's soon found to be a homicide. With Beau the main suspect, Charlotte is determined to prove his innocence. Especially when she finds something horrifying on her farm, and clues all around her. Now if she can just discover what they mean...
This is the second book in the series and I enjoyed it much more than the first (sorry). The characters are a little bit more fleshed out, and the story line is very good. We go with Charlotte and gather clues along the way, hoping to find the trail of a killer. We also find that Samuel, her farmer, is along and willing to help, if only to keep her out of trouble. She has her own ideas on how to figure out who is ruining everyone's strawberry plants, and she's going to do something about it, even if it does get her into trouble.
Sheriff Goodacre likes Charlotte, but refuses to share information -- unless Charlotte has something that's worth sharing with her. Their rapport is also excellent, and I like the fact that the sheriff doesn't dismiss Charlotte out of hand deciding that she's 'just rambling on.' She actually listens to her and follows leads when necessary.
When we come to the climax and the murderer is revealed, it's a rather interesting one. It occurs at the same time as another event, and mixing the two together seems to work somehow. While I don't see a third book in the planning, I do hope that the author follows through and writes one. Recommended.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley but this in no way influenced my review.
More on Elle Brooke White's Books: https://www.fantasticfiction.com/w/elle-brooke-white/
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