The St. Valentine’s Day Cookie Massacre (A Hatter’s Cove Gazette Mystery #1)
Author: Elisabeth Crabtree
3 out of 5 stars
After ten years in Miami, Kat Archer starts missing her hometown and decides to move back. As an experienced reporter, she’s quickly hired by one of the town’s newspapers, the Hatter’s Cove Gazette. Unfortunately, she’s assigned to write the food column after their food critic leaves. While covering the grand opening of a bakery, she witnesses a fight between a fellow reporter, Simon, and bakery employee Benny Yates. She also learns about the murder of James Wallace whose daughter was eventually convicted of the crime. That night she returns to the bakery after receiving a call from someone wanting to meet her there to give her information. However, when she arrives, she finds the dead body of Benny Yates. She’s determined to investigate on her own, find the truth, and write a story about it before anyone else does. Along the way, she discovers surprising secrets about people she knows.
This is a nice cozy mystery novella. It was well written and the pace was good. And it actually take place in Florida. I don’t know if it’s just the ones I happen to pick, but most of the cozy mysteries I read take place in the northeast. I do wish there had been descriptions of the town, because one of the few descriptions we’re given is about the outdoor shopping mall’s Parisian store fronts in bright neon colors. So it seems like a fun setting.
I really liked Kat. I just liked her overall personality, and I liked when she immediately bonded with a cat while at the murder scene. I would read more of this series just because of her. I also liked the other main characters, and many of the side characters have fun and interesting personalities.
However, there was one really big problem. The plot was incredibly predictable. There’s technically two mysteries here. Six years previously, Benny’s ex-girlfriend had been convicted of murdering her father, and she pled guilty to manslaughter to get a deal. So there is a question of whether or not she actually murdered her father. As soon as I read about the murder and got a feel for the characters involved at the time, I knew immediately what happened. Granted, information was later revealed that showed I wasn’t right about all of the details. Even then I was able to take other information we had learned and, again, knew immediately what happened. And because that crime was so obvious, it wasn’t hard to realize who was likely Benny’s killer.
So yeas, the plot was very predictable. However, I liked the characters enough that I would be willing to read more from the series (which is only two books in total right now), plus they’re novellas so I’m not spending a lot of time reading them. But the predictable plot and the lack of descriptions of the town are why I’m rating this book 3 out of 5 stars. If you’re looking for a fun cozy mystery novella for a quick read and don’t mind a predictable plot, then you’d probably enjoy this one.
Current price through Amazon Kindle: $0
Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ICXDRCU
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