Customer Reviews

Eat, Drink and Be Wary (Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Still recovering from the trauma inflicted upon her by Aaron, Magdelena Yoder foolishly agrees to let her cook, Freni, host the East Coast Delacies cooking contest at her place of business, The Penn Dutch Inn. The top prize is one hundred thousand dollars. Entries are by invitation only and Freni is one of the contestants.

Obviously, all the contestants badly want to win. However, the sponsor, George Mitchell, is not a friendly person and is actually held in utter distaste by almost everyone involved in the contest. Someone either needed to win more than anyone else or intensely loathed George because the obnoxious sponsor is murdered. Local police chief Melvin Stolzful leans towards Freni being the culprit. This forces Magdelena to do her own sleuthing in order to prove her chef is innocent.

The rich and famous who have stayed at this inn are quite a droll group in terms of their relationship with the proprietor, who finds them very under-whelming and amusing! ly English. Tamar Myers is back on the right buggy with this humorous culinary mystery that adds an authentic feel to the Pennsylvania-Dutch country. The meticulously researched insight into the Amish and Mennonites brings alive these cultures to the reader better than any travelogue could ever do. The who-done-it is a well cooked puzzler. Interestingly, the heroine is a better, more rounded character since she lost her love interest (see the previous book). The book includes recipes from local cuisine that are delicious. However, before readers eat and drink, they should be wary that these recipes come with a high fat content (that why this reviewer tested them on her spouse), but like the novel the are delicious.

Harriet Klausner

This book started out a bit better than the previous ones, but I found it got quite stale pretty fast. Part of the problem is that Ms. Myers has to repeat everything with every new installment in the series. Then the little comments don't seem so funny anymore. For example we've heard how Magdalena's parents died in every single book, and I'm sure it will be in every other one in the series. Magdalena has some original funny moments in this book, and that's what keeps me reading. I will try to persevere with the series, but it's hard slogging. In this book the Penn Dutch Inn is being used to host a cooking show. Magdalena's cousin Freni is entering her unbeatable bread pudding into the contest, and things start really cooking when the owner of the company who is sponsoring the contest is found dead in Magdalena's barn.

Much to Magdelena Yoder's surprise, her cook Freni Hostetler has arranged for a cooking contest to be held at the PennDutch Inn. Freni is one of the contestants and hopes to use the prize money to bribe her daughter-in-law Barbara to divorce her husband (Freni's son.) Enter a group of interesting guests, all of them either contestants or judges in the cooking contest. When one of the guests is killed, everyone else becomes a suspect. Each guest has a reason to hate the murder victim and this creates some red herrings for the reader. The person who is eventually revealed as the murderer has the weakest motive of the group, but regardless the book provides some light and enjoyable reading.

Mystery readers who are sticklers for plot will find this a bit thin--oh, more than a bit thin. There is a murder and a murderer, to be sure, but the tracking down of the latter is hit and miss. The atmosphere is no different from the author's other books in this series, an inn in Amish country. As always, the characters are good. But what one reads this series for is the humor. It is here, but much of it is right out of the previous and ensuing volumes, take your pick. If the reader doesn't read the Hernia (sic) books too close together, the wisecracks will amuse. At least a year should be allowed between these or the reader will get the impression that this is a rerun.

I love this edible mystery series. But I must say that "...Wary" left me weary. I found much of the narrative to be repeated from other books in the series. The characters were for the most part uninteresting, and the plot line a bit thin. Ms. Myers was not up to her usual standards on this one. Buy it? Yes! How can we miss out on one, even if it's a little undercooked?

Magdalena, the proprietor of the Penn Dutch Inn, is a Mennonite woman. It is always interesting to get her perspective of the many varied situations that come her way. She is coherced into having a cooking contest at the Inn which results in murder. GREAT SERIES!!!!!

Mystery line is okay but certainly am getting tired of so-o much repetition in every book. If reading a series from the beginning what is the need for constantly repeating the history of the family (parents' accident; mother's turning in grave causing earth tremblings and quake (this is utterly ridiculous!); sister's misbehavior; etc, etc, etc). Perhaps it is to take up space and therefore make the current story line shorter and easier to write? Does the author think that everyone has a short term memory problem and/or is not very intelligent?!! This is just about ruining the series for me. Otherwise it would be mildly entertaining and vaguely informative regarding Amish and Mennonite lifestyles. If not reading a series from the get-go then it is up to the reader to figure out some of the past history and preferably start at the beginning. So the lesson of this series seems to be Repeat-Repeat-Repeat!

This book has light-hearted humor, wit, mystery and recipes. What more could you want? It's part of an Amish/Mennonite murder mystery series that pokes fun at country living and gives humorous guest vs. host exchanges. The series takes place in Hernia, PA at the PennDutch Inn. In this particular story the setting is the backdrop for a cooking contest - using the PennDutch Inn's kitchen. The revelation of the contestant's secrets/motives while trying to determine the true killer of the contest sponsor and judge showcase many improbable but hilarious "co-incidences."