A Country Cooking School Mystery, No 1
Paige Shelton
Berkley
Prime Crime
Jan 2012/ ISBN: 978-0-425-24585-9
Mystery/Cozy
Amazon
Reviewed by Laura
Hinds
Betts Winston lives
and works in Broken Rope, Missouri where she helps her grandmother
at Gram's Country Cooking School. Broken Rope is a town steeped
in history and lore, having seen its fair share of thieves and hooligans
as well as old west justice.
The book begins with
this sentence: ·If the items in the cast-iron skillet hadn't
burst into flames just as Gram was dunking the coated chicken breast
into the hot bubbling grease, we might not have found the dead body
so soon.· With an opener like that, how could a reader not
be intrigued?
Author Paige Shelton
is no newcomer to writing mysteries (her other series is the Farmers·
Market Series) and her skill certainly shines in this debut of A
Country Cooking School Mystery series.
Once the dead body has
been found and identified, it seems that Gram is a suspect; so naturally,
Betts has to clear her name and risk danger to her own person to
find the real killer. She turns to her good friend Jake, who is
a member of the local Historical Society for help. Yet soon there
is another man in the picture; the kicker is that this guy is a
ghost!
Between the ghost, the
historian, and Betts, they should be able to solve the murder at
the cooking school, right? It's an interesting path down the roads
of past and present to discover what is really going on in Broken
Rope.
I found this to be a
very enjoyable read, with its own style and humor and charming old
west motif. The characters were true to life, including the ghost.
This is a cozy mystery to be sure, but with a historic and western
flair all its own.
Perhaps it is even worthy
of its own genre. Mystery/Cozy/Western/Paranormal.
If you are a fan of
Paige's previous works, you are bound to enjoy this as well. If
you like Casey Daniels Wild Wild Death or Dead Bolt
by Juliet Blackwell, this new series should appeal to you too.
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