A Deadly Feast
Kindle Edition, 272 pages
Expected publication: May 7th 2019 by Crooked Lane Books
Goodreads synopsis:
National bestselling author Lucy Burdette’s intrepid food critic Hayley Snow must sniff out a killer in the ninth Key West Food Critic mystery.
Key West food critic Hayley Snow scents-es something fishy when a customer falls stone-crab cold dead on a seafood tasting tour.
Thanksgiving is nearly here, and Key West food critic Hayley Snow has just one more assignment to put to bed for Key Zestmagazine before she gets to celebrate with her family and her police officer fiancé, Nathan Bransford. Then, just days later, wedding bells will ring—if death doesn’t toll first.
The sweet potatoes and stuffing will have to wait when Hayley picks up a distraught phone call from her friend, Analise Smith. On the last stop of a seafood tasting tour run by Analise, one of the customers collapsed—dead. With the police on the verge of shutting down the tour—and ruining Analise’s business—Hayley can hardly refuse her friend’s entreaties to investigate.
As if wedding jitters and family strife weren’t enough for Hayley to worry about, there’s crusty pastry chef Martha Hubbard, whose key lime pie may have been the murder weapon—but did she poison her own pie or was she framed? As the hours to Turkey Day tick away, the pressure cooker is on for Hayley to serve up the culprit on a silver platter in A Deadly Feast, national bestselling author Lucy Burdette’s taste-tempting ninth Key West Food Critic mystery.
***
3 Stars
This is the ninth book in the Key West Food Critic Mystery series for Crooked Lane Books. This is the first book I have read in this series. I think the author should have added a bit more background here and there to engage us as readers to really like and want to follow these characters. I was lost for nearly a third of the book trying to dig into who was who and what was what. When I finally got a handle on that, the book seemed to go more smoothly. I think if you are a normal reader of this series you probably wouldn’t have noticed this difficulty since you have had eight previous books of insight behind you on the whole backstory of the world.
The mystery all centers around a food tasting tour and on the last stop of the tour someone ends up dead. I had a hard time getting into the mystery part of this cozy and the characters weren’t engaging me to want to read further. I am glad I stuck it out, though. By the time they realized it was a murder instead of an accidental death, then the story really started going strong.
I thought this was a decent book. A great book to read on a rainy day. I may pick up some other titles in this series just to catch myself up a bit. The last half of the book was stronger than the first half. But it all was still an enjoyable read. Cozy lovers will love the unique setting and all the food references. Lots of possibilities in this series to explore. I look forward to researching it more in the future.
I received this as an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) in return for an honest review. I thank NetGalley, the publisher and the author for allowing me to read this title.
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