Reviewed by Jeanne
Death, Lies, and Apple Pies by Valerie Malmont is the second in the Tori Miracle series. Horror author
Tori packs up her cats, Fred and Noel, and leaves New York for Lickin Creek, PA
and a visit with her new fiancé Garnet.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the week of vacation Garnet had planned
has gone awry, but Tori doesn’t have a chance to get bored: right off the bat,
she’s named Celebrity Judge of the Apple Butter Festival, succeeding the
extension agent who served last year. Other
complications ensue when she discovers Garnet’s widowed sister has moved in
with him and said sister is deeply involved with a group trying to stop a
nuclear waste dump being placed near the town.
The site hinges on whether or not elderly landowner Percy Montrose will
sell the land for the dump. When Percy
dies suddenly, the doctor says it was death from natural causes, but Tori isn’t
so sure. It may just be the journalist
in her, but Percy’s death is just too convenient for too many people. . . and
that includes Garnet’s sister Greta.
I thoroughly enjoyed Death, Snow, and Mistletoe
(fourth book in the series) and found myself easily caught up in this one as
well. The names can be a bit off-putting
at times (Bathsheba Butterbaugh or Greta Gochenauer) but that didn’t last
long. Malmont does a good job of
balancing the fun and mystery, and while there were times I wish Tori would
pause before rushing in where angels fear to tread, I didn’t get annoyed with
her as I usually do with heroines who are too impetuous. I also want to give Malmont credit for
handling a difficult subject with some even-handedness: it would be easy to
immediately side with one or the other group in the nuclear waste controversy,
but she does a reasonably good job of presenting both sides of the argument.
The only bad thing is that there are just five books in the
series. Apparently, the publisher didn’t
think they were selling well enough and declined any more. The last book came out in 2003. It occurred to me that since publishing has
changed so much, it might be that Ms. Malmont might consider self-publishing so
I did a search. Sadly, it turned out that she had died earlier this year so
unless she left a manuscript there will be no more.
Moving from apple pie to Key Lime pie, we have An
Appetite for Murder by Lucy Burdette,
the first book in a new cozy mystery series. Hayley Snow was stocking shelves in New
Jersey when she fell head over heels for a guy, even pulling up stakes and
following Chad home to Florida. The
relationship lasted about as long as one would expect, which is how she ended
up on a houseboat in Key West. Always a
foodie, Hayley finds out about a job opening at Key Zest magazine as a food critic—could anything be more
perfect? Complications arise when it
turns out the co-owner of the magazine is Kristen Faulkner, the “other woman”
who replaced Hayley in Chad’s affections, not to mention his bed. Hayley sets out to taste and write a column,
only to discover she’s under suspicion for murder. . . Kristen’s murder.
I try not to judge a mystery series by its first book. Such books usually have to spend a good bit
of time introducing the cast of characters, developing a setting, and working
up the premise. Appetite is pretty
standard in that regard. The Key West
setting is nicely done, the descriptions of food are good, and Hayley seems to
know what to do in regard to writing. Hayley
herself is bit ditzy for my taste, no pun intended, but I hope she’ll mature a
bit as the series progresses. Yes, there was a cat. His name is Evinrude, and that's all I can remember.
The other
problem is that I can’t stop thinking about Key Lime Pie.
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