Maddie Day

Robbie is remodeling the upstairs of her shop to make guest rooms while down in the restaurant she is dealing with meetings of Indiana University's Sociology Department of which her friend Lou is a member. One of these meetings get quite heated and the next day when Robbie and Lou go out walking, they find the body of one of the Sociology Department under the ice of the local lake. Now the question is how does Robbie keep the cops from charging Lou with the crime?

I enjoyed this story. I like that Robbie is getting more involved with the community. I also like her ability to find the murder victim then go on to make sure justice is served. She is persistent in making sure that the sheriff's department knows what she finds out even if it gets her in trouble (both with the sheriff and the murderer.) I enjoyed learning more about the history of Robbie's building/home. It is interesting to find out the how and why of architectural designs. I love the secondary characters and learning more about them.

I have to admit it took me a while to figure out the murderer. I hope I do better with the rest of the series.… (mehr)

Cece Barton has packed up and left southern CA after the death of her husband and moves to a small town in the wine country, Colinas, CA. It makes sense, her twin sister is there, and her daughter (and fraught relationships) attends college nearby. The small business community seems to be thriving and Cece manages a wine bar. When an unpleasant member of the Vineyard association, Vincent Sardo is killed, Cece winds up on the police's radar after evidence of argumentative emails were exchanged between the two. All in all, it was a good start to a new series. There were a lot of characters, and I look forward to seeing which of them float to the top as mainstay secondary characters. I really liked Cece's elderly neighbor.… (mehr)

Deep Fried Death is the twelfth book in the A Country Store Mystery series by Maddie Day.

Robbie and her employees, Danna and Turner, built a rustic outhouse mounted on two wheels. They entered it in an outhouse race at the Abe Martin, a Hooiser cartoon character from a hundred years ago, Festival on Memorial Day. Danna will be riding in the outhouse, but first, she and Turner start to push the outhouse to the starting line when they bump into a curb. The door on the outhouse pops open, and a body falls out along with a skillet. The body is quickly identified as Evermina Martin, and the skillet is quickly determined to be the murder weapon. Evermina owns the restaurant across from Robbi’s Pans ‘N Pancakes, and her fondest wish was to put Robbie out of business. At first, the police are interested in Robbie. Still, when Robbie’s brother-in-law comes under suspicion, she decides that even with her being with child, she will cut back on her involvement but will do some investigation. Robbie will discover several subjects that she will need to investigate.

I love this series; it has wonderful, engaging, and well-developed characters. I particularly liked that Robbie took into consideration her pregnancy and stayed away from putting her life and her future baby’s life in danger. Of course, Buck is there with his “down home” witticisms. Even his cousin, Wanda, had a few of her own to contribute. The story is well-written and plotted. I feel I am there with the characters in each book in the series. The story has enough twists and turns that I kept guessing until the end who the killer was.

Delicious-sounding recipes are also included in the book.

I’m looking forward to the next book in this fun series.… (mehr)