#FlashbackFriday – The Quiche and the Dead (A Pie Town Mystery) by Kirsten Weiss #Review / #Giveaway @KensingtonBooks

Dollycas’s Thoughts

Welcome to the California coastal town of San Nicholas. A place where Valentine Harris expected to live a happy life with Mark Jeffreys. She was going to open a pie shop and he was going to sell real estate and they would live happily ever after. But that didn’t happen. Mark is selling real estate, his face is on signs everywhere. Val did open her pie shop. But there is no happily ever after, in fact, Val is living in her pie shop until she can afford to rent a place and she tries as hard as she can to avoid her ex. What did she ever see in that man?

The pie shop has a few regulars and the tourists love the place. Val is hoping to add to her business by adding breakfast pies to the menu. She cooks up a quiche to give to her new neighbor that has opened a gym, but the woman wants nothing to do with it. Regular Joe says he’ll take the quiche off her hands and quickly starts chowing down. Then just a quickly drops dead. The police say the man was poisoned and the future of Pie Town and its owner are in jeopardy. When septuagenarian pie crust baker Charlene decides she and Val need to start their own investigation Val just thinks its another of Charlene’s pie in the sky ideas. Then she finds herself out in the fog, in the middle of the night, trying to find out who really killed her customer. They may find out a lot more than they bargained for.

Pie Anyone?? Have one handy when you start reading!

I like Valentine Harris. She could have packed it in or moved her shop to another town, but she is sticking it out in San Nicholas. She is a smart woman with delicious ideas and a can-do attitude. I LOVE Charlene! Pie crust maker extraordinaire, a conspiracy theorist and owner of a very unique white cat. She had me laughing out loud time and time again.  Their sleuth abilities may be a bit lacking but they do make a great team. The supporting cast is diverse and really adds to the story.

I really enjoy the atmosphere of Pie Town, sans the murder, of course. Val has the coffee set up as self-serve, she offers a variety of sweet and savory pies, and allows a group of young adults who take a table daily to play games. It just feels very welcoming to residents of San Nichols and tourists too.

The mystery is very well plotted and written. Our victim Joe was a bit of a sleuth himself along with his friend Frank. When Val and Charlene start to dig into some of their “cases” they uncover some very interesting things that take their own investigation in many different directions. I followed all the clues and solved the murder right along with them.

This series is off to a wonderfully mouthwatering start. The main characters are fun and engaging and take us along on a fun whodunit. I really enjoyed my first trip to Pie Town and am excited that the second book in the series, Bleeding Tarts is already on my Kindle not so patiently waiting for me to read it.