(Warning: Contains spoilers.)
A new, delicious chapter in the lives of Hannah Swensen, her sister Andrea, and her domineering mother Delores begins. Hannah Swensen is excited to be the head judge of a baking competition, and relieved after the last mystery has been solved and her mother has laid off of her slightly about the marriage issue, but the excitement is quickly soured when Coach Boyd Watson (another judge and the wife-beater of Danielle, one of her friends) is discovered dead in the Watsons’ garage after Danielle calls her in a panic. She again has to take matters into her own hands and search for any clues about his murderer when Danielle becomes the prime suspect of the police. Her case seems hopeless, considering that the cops believe she could’ve struck back at him when he was abusing her, and that her alibi isn’t solid. She’s taken to the hospital when she becomes too shocked to stay without medical attention and is forced to remain there while the cops investigate. This time there’s an abundance of suspects; Boyd wasn’t exactly known for his sweet temperament and there are several people who could have a reason to take him out of the equation.
As Hannah investigates further, she finds out that one of the boys on his team has been using steroids; she just has to find out which one. Lucy Richards’ sudden wealth raises her suspicions, and rightly so. She breaks into her apartment with Andrea and finds photographs that Lucy has been using to blackmail people in return for money. And among the photographs is a picture- of the killer murdering Boyd. The picture is dark, most likely because she didn’t want to use flash, but Norman helps Hannah by blowing the picture up on the killer’s wrist. She discovers an antique cufflink on the wrist of two horse heads; antiques are rarely worn in Lake Eden, which helps to narrow down her suspect list. She enlists the help of her mother Delores (who loves collecting antiques) and goes to Mason, the father of one of the boys who was on Boyd’s team, to ask if she can run through the outtakes of the baking show in hopes that she’ll spot the killer somewhere. She and Andrea then sit through hours of tapes with nothing gleaned from them.
At the end of the book, she is alone in the truck to return a pen that she took mistakenly, and Mason enters. He admits to being the murderer, to Hannah’s shock, and claims that he hadn’t meant to kill him. It had been a confrontation about the fact that he didn’t want his son to quit steroids and had escalated to the point of Mason bashing in his head with a hammer. Hannah is able to evade her death by doing something unlikely; throwing flour in his eyes to stun him momentarily until Bill and Mike arrive. Mason is taken away by the police, and the mystery is solved.
9.5/10. It was thrilling to wonder who actually did it, especially because the victim was someone with such a bad temper and bound to attract enemies around every corner. The conclusion wasn’t AS shocking as the first book but it was still suspenseful.
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