Crime and Cherry Pits: An Organic Cozy Mystery (Farm to Table Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery
4th in Series
Setting – Michigan
Publisher : Poisoned Pen Press (February 20, 2024)
Mass Market Paperback : 312 pages
ISBN-10 : 1728273056
ISBN-13 : 978-1728273051
Kindle ASIN : B0C3115J54
Head back to snowy Michigan just in time for the annual cherry pit spitting contest. It’s all fun and games until the local drama professor chokes on more than just his pride.
Shiloh Bellamy can hardly believe it—for the first time in her family farm’s seventy-year history, she has managed to score a highly-coveted booth at the Cherry Farm Market in Traverse City, Michigan. It’s a huge win in her master plan to bring the rundown farm back to life… and the fact that her coup has sent her next-door neighbor and organic farming competitor into fits of jealousy doesn’t hurt, either. But the festive atmosphere at the farm market takes a dark turn when a man entered in the famous cherry pit-spitting competition chokes and dies right in front of Shiloh, who is standing near the sidelines as a spectator.
When the death turns out to be more suspicious than a cherry pit down the wrong pipe, Shiloh finds herself under local law enforcement’s microscope—she has developed something of a reputation for being unwittingly involved in local murders. And when they discover her cousin Stacey had been secretly dating the man in question—and that he was married to someone else—Shiloh begins to worry that everything she has worked so hard to accomplish with her family’s farm is about to be taken away. It will take all her investigative skills, a tenuous friendship (or is it something more?) with the local sheriff, and some help from Shiloh’s trusty pug, Huckleberry, to prove the cops are barking up the wrong cherry tree and put the real killer behind bars for good.
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Shiloh Bellamy has been working so hard on her family farm and now she is being rewarded. Bellamy Farm for the first time in its long seventy-year history has been selected to have a booth at the Cherry Farm Market in Traverse City. She knows this is a big deal and plans to make the most of it. So she decided to spend the money to have a custom booth made. The new booth was shaped like a giant berry basket overflowing with cherries. It is sure to capture people’s attention.
In addition to all the booths, there were bands and plays on the stage and fun contests like a cherry pit-spitting competition. Shiloh was able to step away from the booth to watch the people spit those pits, but one man appeared to choke on his. Shiloh rushes to help him but she is too late. It turns out the man wasn’t choking on the pit. The death is deemed suspicious and Shiloh is right in the middle of the investigation. Her reputation for butting into cases has reached Traverse City but when she learns her cousin Stacey was dating the man in secret because he was still married she knows she has to do something. So she and her lovable pug Huckleberry are on the case. Can she solve the crime and keep things going at the farm and the festival? Maybe with the help of her friends, she can because she is not ready to have everything she worked so hard for go up in dust.
Shiloh truly had her hands full in Crime and Cherry Pits. Her days were filled with taking care of the farm and orchard, baking tasty cherry treats to serve at the festival, working at the festival, trying to get her cousin Stacey on board with the plans for her grandmother’s stocks, and now trying to solve a murder.
Shiloh always tries to do what’s right for everyone but her relationship with her father is rocky. Her cousin is a whiny brat with high expectations. She is close to single dad Quinn and his daughter Hazel. Hazel spends a lot of time with Shiloh when Quinn is working as an EMT/firefighter. He clearly has feelings for Shiloh but has decided they can only be friends. She is also becoming very good friends with Sheriff Milan Penbrook which drives Quinn a little crazy. Her right-hand woman/farm director, Chesney is all in on helping make Bellamy Farms everything Shiloh dreams it can be and they make a wonderful team. All these characters are well-crafted and grow in different ways in each story. I truly wanted to smack Quinn a few times though. Stacey is a pain as well.
I found the mystery very intriguing and the way the victim died interesting. Happening at a huge festival left the suspect pool wide open. Shiloh was on high alert trying to clear Stacey and find other viable suspects. She is also distracted by some scary things happening at the farm. Things do take a drastic turn for our amateur sleuth but it doesn’t keep her from snooping when she appears to be in the right place but quickly sees it’s at the wrong time. I enjoyed the way the reveal and takedown happened and then took a moment to pat myself on the back for solving the crime before it was revealed.
The Epilogue left me with a smile on my face. The future looks pretty bright for Shiloh and Belamy Farms. That is until Shiloh finds herself involved in a little murder and mayhem again.
Crime and Cherry Pits was an entertaining lighthearted mystery with appealing characters for the most part. I am keen to see what Ms. Flower has planned for Shiloh next.
Your Escape Into A Good Book Travel Agent
About the Author
Amanda Flower is a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author of over thirty-five mystery novels. Her novels have received starred reviews from Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, and Romantic Times, and she had been featured in USA Today, First for Women, and Woman’s World. She currently writes for Penguin-Random House (Berkley), Kensington, Hallmark Publishing, Crooked Lane Books, and Sourcebooks. In addition to being a writer, she was a librarian for fifteen years. Today, Flower and her husband own a farm and recording studio, and they live in Northeast Ohio with their two adorable cats.
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