Carrot Cake Murder:
SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This book revisits the same cozy cast of characters and introduces a few new ones, like Gus (who sadly doesn’t make it too long into our story…actually, not so sadly…he was kind of a braggy middle-aged jerk. Ran away from home at age 20, got “rich” off of opening a bunch of strip clubs and then came back all high and mighty to the family reunion.) Turns out that he’s not nearly as loaded as he says he is and the only reason he’d come back to Lake Eden was to get an old baseball card he’d left there that is worth $2 million.
Poor old Jack (Lisa’s Dad) is the prime suspect for a little bit. He suffers from Alzheimer’s and had a tumultuous relationship with Gus (stemming from Gus’ demands for money at a time when Jack was broke and Gus hitting on Jack’s then-pregnant wife). When Mack said that he witnessed Jack outside at the time of the murder, it looked pretty bad for Jack... However, when you find out that the window Mac witnessed seeing him from has a big ol tree RIGHT in front of it obstructing any view, it actually makes Mac look a lot more suspicious than anyone else. This, along with a few other things, like not wanting to make an official statement to the police, left me wondering if it could really BE that simple??? And why did Hannah and the police have such a hard time figuring out whodunnit? Turns out, Mac did it for the baseball card money and he acted like a fool trying to cover up his mess- wanted to drown his wife and tried to kill Hannah…crazay, I guess, as a reader it can sometimes be nice to feel like you’re the smart one who figured things out. But in this case, it made me feel a little disappointed because it was just too easy.
It was still a cozy/fun read, and I always like spending time with these characters, but I really did miss that big reveal moment at the end and felt it was missing some of the urgency and adrenaline that Joanne Fluke has given us in some of the other stories. My favorites so far are Cherry Cheesecake, Fudge Cupcake and Strawberry Shortcake but this was still a good read because the characters and town are so nice to be with/in.
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