Wednesday, February 13, 2013

A Good Day to Pie

Author: Carol Culver
Genre: Mystery

2 Stars

Hanna Denton has returned home to Crystal Cove, California, after a breakup to take over her Grannie's pie shop.  Her Grannie has now moved to a  retirement community and Hanna is is trying to maintain the shop's reputation for the best pies in the state.  When there is a murder and her Grannie is accused, she looks for the real killer.

This book was just okay.  There is a death at a retirement home, and Hanna's grandmother is suspected of murdering a rival bridge player (Mary), who was very rich. Hann's grandmother is suspected because Mary ate some of grannie's pie just before dying.   Hanna sets about finding the real killer so her grannie won't be sent to jail.  (We already know that there's no way her grannie could have done it, that would be to easy).
 
Since Hanna now runs grannie's pie shop, everywhere she goes she brings a pie with her - not any pie, but different pies each time.  A lot of pies.  She even makes pies for lunch (asparagus, spinach, etc.).  I was beginning to wonder if she ate anything else.  I've said this before, and I will again:  Just because the character sells a certain product, it doesn't mean they can't eat other food.  If you have an Italian restaurant, you are entitled to eat other cuisines.  It's not a requirement or a rule.
Her high school crush has also moved back from wherever and is now chief of police. I guess he was supposed to be the love interest, but he acted more like she was a cousin he didn't like until the last couple of chapters (you know, the one you have to talk to but really don't want to spend any time with). In fact, it seemed he was only spending time with her because he thought SHE might be involved in the murder somehow.
There also were too many questions that seemed to be left unanswered by the end of the book (to me, anyway; you might actually not care at all).  In my opinion, the characters were boring and I really didn't care about any of them.  I may do the "two book rule" I usually (but not always) follow: read the second one and see if it improves (because sometimes the author doesn't 'get it right' in their first time out; and although this author writes Harlequins, this is her first mystery and could fall into that category).  However, I sure hope the next book is better than this one.
 


No comments:

Post a Comment

A Spicy Side of Homicide (An Ivy Creek Mystery Book 14)

Author:      Ruth Baker Genre:       Mystery Digital Book  ASIN #:     B0CPVY5PKY Clean Tales Publishing 138 Pages $2.99 Amazon May 31, 2024...