13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Typical Small-town Cozy Mystery, October 1, 2009
This review is from: Killer Crab Cakes: A Fresh-Baked Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)
When Phyllis Newsom agrees to oversee her cousin's bed and breakfast for a couple of weeks due to a family emergency, she decides to use the opportunity as a getaway and to enter the local Just Desserts competition in nearby Rockport, Texas.
Accompanied by several friends, including her boyfriend, Sam, and Carolyn, her chief rival in local cooking competitions, Phyllis enjoys her time near the Gulf Coast. That is, until the death of one of the guests turns into murder. She trys to stay out of the way figuring she has had enough of murder investigations in her hometown.
However, when a second guest is killed, Phyllis decides to jump into the investigation in spite of the opposition from the local Chief of Police. After all, her cousin's livelihood is at stake.
Killer Crab Cakes by Livia J. Washburn is an interesting cozy mystery set in SE Texas. Washburn follows the genre formula with ease, including mixing murder and mayhem with subtle humor. She manages to keep the killer a secret until near the end, although looking back one can see an occasional clue or two.
As with most cozy's that have a food-related theme, there are a good number of recipes gathered together at the end of the book.
This is the fourth Fresh-Baked Murder mystery, and it is a good one. Previous investigations are alluded to, and readers who read this book first may want to go back to the beginning to understand the relationships. Otherwise, Killer Crab Cakes is entertaining and worth the read.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not As Delicious as Before, December 13, 2009
This review is from: Killer Crab Cakes: A Fresh-Baked Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)
I've read each of the installments in this series and this one wasn't nearly as good as the others. The characters are the same - a retired bunch of school teachers, including: Phyllis, Sam, Eve, and Carolyn, but the setting has changed. Phyllis is watching over a family B&B outside of her hometown and, yet again, the quartet becomes involved with a murder at the B&B. The mystery itself is actually pretty good - there were a lot of characters because of the B&B setting, and I couldn't figure out the whodunit until the very end. But, the thread that kept the other two books together (a cooking contest) is on the backburner here and only briefly used as a plot point. I felt like Phyllis was less likeable in this book and that there were too many other characters that detracted from the development of the story. It was okay, but not as great as the first few books in the series.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I want to go there, again, February 1, 2010
This review is from: Killer Crab Cakes: A Fresh-Baked Mystery (Mass Market Paperback)
Where has Livia Washburn been all my life? I've just discovered another favorite author. This was a good book with real, heartfelt characters. I should have seen the ending coming, but was surprised by 'whodunnit'. Cozy mysteries and B&B inns just go together! Ms Washburn has a knack for putting you on the spot, not just watching the action, but feeling like you're in the action. Well done!
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