Thursday, December 12, 2019

The Candy Cane Caper

The Candy Cane Caper. (A Culinary Mystery) Josi S. Kilpack. 2019. Shadow Mountain. 320 pages. [Source: Review copy]

First sentence: It takes an awful lot of work to get ready for the most wonderful day of the year, Pete, but it doesn’t take much to destroy it.” Sadie paused long enough to take a breath, but quick enough to keep Pete from speaking.

Premise/plot: The Candy Cane Caper is the newest book in a series of mysteries (Cozy Culinary). Sadie, our heroine, is helping her neighbor, Mary, have the best LAST Christmas ever. (Mary has moved out of the neighborhood and into a nursing home, but, not out of Sadie's heart.) Mary is dying--and knows it, as does her family. She wants HER tree up one more time with HER decorations. The problem? Her decorations, ornaments, are super-valuable antiques worth THOUSANDS of dollars. Sadie worries that BLIND Mary could be ROBBED and never suspect a thing. Sure enough, a few (more than a few actually) ornaments DO go missing. Can Sadie find the thief (or thieves) before Mary herself suspects that anything is wrong? Can the lost ornaments be found and restored? And on top of this investigation, can she find time to make all the AMAZING food her family expects?

My thoughts: This was my first time reading a book in this series. If my library owned this series, I'd check them all out NOW and zoom through them. I absolutely loved this one and imagine that they are all equally fabulous. Each chapter--or at least most of them--end with a recipe. The characterization is well-done. The pacing is excellent.

I would definitely recommend this one--for any time of the year. 


© 2019 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

1 comment:

Gretchen said...

This sounds like a good series! I have not read many cozy mysteries, but am currently enjoying a series by Karen Rose Smith called Daisy's Tea Garden that sounds similar to the Cozy Culinary series. Maybe your library carries it. It is well done.