Customer Reviews

Key Lime Pie Murder

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Tri-County Fair has opened in Lake Eden, and it promises to be a busy week for Hannah. Her cookie shop is providing cookies for the chamber of commerce booth, her two sisters and one niece are in various contests, and Hannah has agreed to step in as the third judge for the baking contest.

It's through the contest that Hannah meets Willa. She seems like a bright, engaging woman, but she hints at secrets in her past. The mystery surrounding Willa is only compounded when Hannah finds her dead on the midway just after closing one night. The list of suspects is actually rather long. But who hated Willa enough to kill her?

These books are an equal mix of charm and mystery. We get doses of Hannah's life as well as the crime at hand. There is a good mix of the two, although the mystery does stall ever so slightly around the middle. My bigger complaint was Hannah's bad habit of not sharing info with the police. That seemed more of an issue this time around then in previous books, or maybe I just noticed it more.

It's best to read these books in order because when you do it feels like catching up with old friends who are as delightful as always. And, if you care about what is happening in their lives, you'll enjoy the many sub-plots that run through the book.

The character moments provided some of the best laughs of the book, especially the scenes where Hannah continues to face her two suitors. This is the most unrealistic storyline of the series, but I love watching the love triangle continue to unfold.

As always, there are more recipes as well. This go around, we get 16 of them. I've already tried the title recipe, and it's delicious. The others sound just as promising.

Even though this is a murder mystery, the book is a throw back to small town life and a more innocent time. If that appeals to you, you'll love this series.

I've read all of the Hannah Swenson mysteries and most have been entertaining and enjoyable, but this one was plodding and uninteresting. In fact, when poor Willa bit the dust, I found I didn't even care! And rather than acting like a 30 year old business woman, experienced in crime solving, in this plodding tome, Hannah is boring, techno-illiterate, and not too smart! (Why would you meet a man whom you considered a suspect in a brutal murder at a deserted fairgrounds late at night and then TELL him you had considered him a suspect???) As far as her relationship with Mike (the Hunk) and Norman (the Reliable One), I'm starting to find the entire love triangle boring and sophomoric! Make a decision, already! You're not 15 years old!

I enjoyed Key Lime Murder more than the last installment. Ms. Fluke seemed to be less condescending to her readers' intelligence. And we were spared the precociousness of Tracy. I still was unsatisfied at the very end. The love triangle between Hannah, Norman and Mike has gone on long enough. I think I've just grown tired of Lake Eden and the characters and the style in which they are written. When you find the recipes more interesting than the plot, it is time for me to move on. There are just too many other better written and interesting books for me to read. I would recommend this for die hard fans only.

I have enjoyed each of Joanne Fluke's previous Hannah Swensen novels, but this was by and far the worst one I have read yet. It usually takes me about a day to a day and a half to read her books, whereas I spent more than a week and a half plodding through this one.

The plot was slow and I often found myself confused. The author would get ahead of herself, leaving me reading the same sentence several times wondering if I had missed something in the previous paragraph, only to find that the confusing sentence is explained a page or two later. About 125 pages into the book, Willa Sunquist was FINALLY killed-- keep in mind that the book is only 337 pages, which means that it took more than 1/3 of the book to kill someone off! The murder was solved in about 10 pages, leaving me wondering just what happened in all the pages I had read. (I concluded that nothing happened and I had wasted a lot of time reading this book.)

I used to enjoy the murder mysteries of Jill Churchill, until I noticed the decline in quality and my declining interest. One of Churchill's worst books was the one in which her main character discovers the wonders of car alarms and cell phones (I think I reviewed it here on Amazon before). That was the last Churchill book I read, and that's when I turned to Joanne Fluke to entertain me. But now Joanne Fluke has made the same mistake, with Hannah SO unwilling to enter the 21st century, what with not having a computer or a cell phone and yet at the same time stringing along two men.

There was a part in the book where Norman wants to take a photo of Moishe with his cell phone and send it over to someone else's cell phone. All the while, Hannah is confused-- "Are you going to get your camera? Are you going print the picture out and fax it over?" It was just unbelievable! If Hannah is indeed 29 pushing 30, there's no way she could be so dense and confused about modern technology.

I have read a few of Joann Flukes books enjoyed them, but this one was ok......it seem that the book took longer than the others for Hannah to start solving the murder. The book concentrate more on the fair and the pie contest and her cat (Moshie) having emotional issues. It took me longer than normal to finish this book:( I will read more of the Hannah Swensen mysteries, but i will need to take a break because of this book.

I have read, and own, every book in this series. They are always entertaining and I love the setting and characters. The only thing I don't love is the never-ending, never eventful, love triangle between Hannah and Mike and Norman. It is so unrealistic that I don't want to read about it anymore. I think readers would be very happy to see this situation resolved one way or another, and with a bit more realism.

I've read everyone of the books in this series and look forward to each new one. Ms Fluke has painted herself in a corner. Hannah is a "good girl" so the romance part is limited and the readers have become bored with the Mike or Norman thing! Now what? The mystery was fine for an "American Cozy", the recipies are fun, but get on with Hannah's life. Isn't her biological clock ticking?

I have read all of the series, always hoping that someway somehow the author will launch her easy going characters into the current decade. Having the main character go back and forth between two suitors is boring and unrealistic. It needs to be settled already. If you must know the greatest escapades of the Lake Eden clan then do yourself a favor, borrow it from the library. Hopefully, her next book will be a more realistic ode to the state of Minnesota.

Key Lime Pie Murder was a simple read, nothing overly complicated, but it was just a flat read for me. Hannah and her sisters/friends totally disregard their safety, the law, and common sense by hiding even more evidence and information from the police than I think they ever have before. The few people who shake things up a bit - Doloroes and Bill - are mostly absent from this installment. I'm so tired of the Mike/Norman relationship that I don't even care anymore about what they do or don't do. All I keep thinking is that, in real life, this hunky cop wouldn't spend two sexless years waiting on a plump, frizzy redhead while she disrespects his job and intelligence by sticking her nose into these investigations. And I also don't think a plump small-town dentist is going to pine away while his love calls him only when she needs him to look something up on the internet or take a picture of something. Given all the bodies Hannah keeps finding and murders she keeps investigating, Lisa must open and close the Cookie Jar about 250 days a year. Maybe she'll get a raise or grow a spine in the next book.

I was mostly just bored with this book. Thank God the reading went much faster than the droning, boring plot. I think all that Swedish Plasma has eaten a hole in Hannah's brain because she's stupider in this book than any other HS book thus far. I didn't feel any sympathy when the victim was killed, I didn't feel any dread when the killer was after her, and I feel anything at all in the book was humorous. I'm now avoiding gluten so I can't even try the recipes so that doesn't even bring me any enjoyment. Hannah's total lack of technological savvy was implausible - any 30 year old on planet Earth learned how to use a cell phone from Zach Morris on Saved by the Bell. The sub-plot with Moisha was better than the last with Tracey - at least I didn't have to read about all the inanely, obnoxiously wonderful things Tracey did... I just had to read about how Moisha's wasting away while he stares at the unmoving curtains of a neighbor's condo.

I think the fun has finally been sucked out of this series for me. I purchased about 10 Hannah Swensen books as a bundle on eBay and I think I'll read the last book or two sometime in the next five years so I can finally give them all away.

The ninth in the series is exactly what one would expect, yummy and dependable to deliver that specific Hannah charm and the sweet aromas of the Cookie Jar to keep the mind wrapped around sweets half the time, I never crave chocolate and coffee as when I read these books, it's just insane! The baker /sleuth combo is quite tasty when one reaches for this book, Hanna is the owner of the Cookie Jar and along with her coworkers, friends and family this small Minnesota town resident is always there to deliver the laughs and a bit of a mystery, her crime solving skills keep coming in handy when so many tragic things seem to happen at Lake Eden ... Winters are cold and summers are hot but in between there's Hannah, her orange fuzzball of a cat name Moishe, her two potential loves ( she simply can't choose between nice and dependable Norman and the handsome but juvenile cop Mike ) and her hilarious regency era obsessed mother, chic sister with two kids along with a few minor characters that really feel like home when I read about them. I love this series, it's cozy and heartwarming and even though some things are going at a snail's pace and feel like teenage flirting going on for ages ( the Norman / Mike saturation) I still really like how slow the time moves and how's its always ready to greet me back when I want to be back in it.

The Tri-County Fair is the backdrop for the crime, one of the judges gets murdered and it's up to Hannah to solve this, her life seems to be in constant danger since she was also a judge, so her snooping abilities are tuned to the highest degree. I had my guesses but in the end was fooled for a second, this was a cute mystery that makes me want to read Carrot Cake Murder next ... Fluke is great when it comes to cozy mysteries, like a freshly baked cookie on a cold day she's just what I need when I'm in that mood.

Kasia S.