The
Killing in the Cafe: A Fethering Mystery. Severn House Publishers. March 2016. 192
pp. ISBN#: 9781780290812.
Polly’s Cake Shop is a village
bakery shop that is pure delectable muffins and pastries and a comforting place
to spend some time with several cups of tea and one of the desserts. It now appears it’s up for sale and it’s
owner is the epitome of apathy when it comes to the sale of the shop, seeing it
as time to end the financial venture and get out with as much money as she can
get from the sale.
The end of this business winds up
compelling many residents of the town to form an action committee to save the
shop, lest a commercial Starbucks wind up replacing the cozy little
restaurant. It’s a bizarre bunch of
characters comprising this venture, but their goal is to have a group of
volunteers take over running the same cake shop business as a community venture. As members vie for control, the committee and
other town residents are shocked to find a murder has occurred in their
village. Jude winds up being snagged to
run the shop and Carole has mixed feelings about the whole affair. This is the 17th mystery that Jude
and Carole, two friends of opposite character types, set out to solve.
Rather coincidentally, along comes
an unknown business entrepreneur who volunteers to cash the renovation
necessary for the project. At first, the
murdered man with a bullet in his temple is unknown but very quickly is
identified and our two heroines begin to explore his background, as well as the
original owner of the cake shop and some other connected characters.
The
Killing in the Café… is an
old-fashioned, clever mystery that keeps the reader guessing all the way to the
end. The quirkiness of the characters
lends to the intrigue of it all and the who-done-it, eerie quality remains to
the very surprising end. Relationships
run awry motivate the crime and provide a satisfying end that is ironic indeed!
This is a stand-alone story but will make many readers want to read the other
mystery novels in this series! Nicely plotted, Simon Brett.
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