Biscuits and Slashed Browns (A Country Store Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Setting – Indiana
Kensington (January 30, 2018)
Mass Market Paperback: 292 Pages
ISBN-13: 978-1496711212
E-Book ASIN: B071DZ1K5W
For country-store owner Robbie Jordan, the National Maple Syrup Festival is a sweet escape from late-winter in South Lick, Indiana—until murder saps the life out of the celebration . . .
As Robbie arranges a breakfast-themed cook-off at Pans ‘N Pancakes, visitors pour into Brown County for the annual maple extravaganza. Unfortunately, that includes Professor Connolly, a know-it-all academic from Boston who makes enemies everywhere he goes—and this time, bad manners prove deadly. Soon after clashing with several scientists at a maple tree panel, the professor is found dead outside a sugar shack, stabbed to death by a local restaurateur’s knife. When an innocent woman gets dragged into the investigation and a biologist mysteriously disappears, Robbie drops her winning maple biscuits to search for answers. But can she help police crack the case before another victim is caught in a sticky situation with a killer?
Recipes Included
Dollycas’s Thoughts
We arrive in South Lick just in time for the 5th Annual National Maple Syrup Festival. The cook-off will be held at Pans ‘N Pancakes and Robbie is excited about her maple flavored entry, Maple Curry Biscuits. There is also a conference on maple tree science with many professors taking part. Some of them will also be judging the cook-off. Professor Warren Connolly from Boston is one of the judges. Robbie finds he not well liked by his fellow academics. When the man is found dead at another festival event, stabbed with a chef’s knife that happens to belong to Robbie’s friend and her employee’s father, a research biochemist disappears Robbie finds herself trying to find a missing person and a murderer. Could they both be the same person?
Robbie is running her butt off quite literally in this story. One worker is searching for his dad and her assistant Danna injured herself at a volleyball tournament so she is unable to work. Visitors are pouring into town and into Pans ‘N Pancakes and most of the time Robbie is doing the cooking, the waitressing, and bussing the tables. Her plate is overflowing and she doesn’t have much time to investigate anything, but she does and gets herself into some mighty stick situations too.
I have enjoyed this series from the start. Ms. Day has created wonderful characters. The dialect of the area and the dialogue including some authentic expressions make these stories so much fun to read.
The pacing is swift and so much happens within these pages that is very difficult to put the book down. There was a little shakeup in the police department. The new/old investigating detective is very unique. Buck is back with his overly hearty appetite to keep Robbie in the loop of the investigation as much as he can. The suspect pool isn’t too deep but they all have a motive in one way or another so it wasn’t an easy mystery to solve.
I have to mention the setting at Pans ‘N Pancakes. I have a clear picture of it in my head, not sure how truly accurate it is, but a place that serves food like Robbie does, decked out with all kinds of old kitchen gadgets sounds like my kind of place. She is also adding rooms to the place and her first guest should be arriving in the next book. It is definitely a place I would love to visit.
About the Author
Maddie Day is a talented amateur chef and holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-nominated author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau and three cats in Massachusetts.
As Edith Maxwell, she writes the Local Foods Mysteries (Kensington Publishing) and the Quaker Midwife Mysteries (Midnight Ink).
You can find all Maddie’s/Edith’s identities at www.edithmaxwell.com. She blogs every weekday with the other Wicked Cozy Authors at wickedcozyauthors.com. Look for her as Edith M. Maxwell and Maddie Day on Facebook and @edithmaxwell and @maddiedayauthor on Twitter.
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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
This sounds like a delightful book. Anything with maple syrup involved has got to be good. Right?
Thanks for the review and information on “Biscuits and Slashed Browns” by a author I greatly love to read.
2clowns at arkansas dot net
This is one of my favorite. Series!!!!!
Sounds like a good book.