Customer Reviews

Killer Crab Cakes: A Fresh-Baked Mystery

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

 

 

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.

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.

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!

Phyllis Newsome has been asked to temporarily take over her cousin's bed and breakfast for a few weeks, so she and her fellow retired teachers are now running The Oak Knoll Bed 'n Breakfast.Phyllis and crew are eagerly looking forward to getting some rest and to entering a baking contest. Unfortunately, the boarders in the bed and breakfast start to die.

Phyllis is worried for her cousin's B&B and is convinced the police are not looking in the right direction or at the right suspect. So she and her companion Sam along with her crew jump in to solve the mystery.

Liva Washborn has written an interesting cozy filled with the subtle humor, a solid mystery, great characters and good recipes. This is the fourth book in the series and hopefully we will join Phyllis, Sam and her friends many more times in the future.

Her cousin Dorothy asks retired teacher Phyllis Newsom to manage her Oak Knoll Bed and breakfast in Fulton, Texas while she and her husband are in Dallas for the birth of their grandchild, the widow considers saying no as she knows nothing about a B&B. However Dorothy mentions the annual Rockport Just Desserts Competition so Phyllis says yes. Three other retired teachers, Sam Fletcher, Carolyn Wilbarger and Eve Turner join Carolyn j in the cooking contest, as she and Phyllis always enjoy competing against one another.

Sam and Phyllis go fishing off the nearby pier. Already there is grouchy B&B guest Ed McKenna. Sam taps Ed on the back and the man tumbles into the water. Ed jumps in immediately and though he struggles gets Ed to the shore. However Ed is dead and later the autopsy affirms he was murdered. Assistant Police of Chief Abby Clifton and Police Chief Dale Clifton suspect Sam and when more murders come to the Oak Knoll B&B now being notoriously dubbed "The Murder House"; Phyliss, who vowed no murder investigations by her on this trip, begins to investigate.

The fourth Newsom amateur sleuth (see A PEACH OF A MURDER and THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE KILLER) is a wonder "fresh baked" mystery as Phyllis tries to stay out of the latest SLICE OF MURDER, but cannot as Sam is the prime suspect. KILLER CRAB CAKES is an entertaining whodunit starting with Sam's gentle pat on the back that has the related cops hone in on him and the other retires. With light bantering and recipes as Phyllis and Carolyn compete in a heated cooking rivalry between BFFs, fans will enjoy Livia J. Washburn's latest culinary homicide investigation.

Harriet Klausner

I don't know if it was because this book takes place in a different location, or if it was Sam's 'folksy' way of speaking that irritated me to no end, but I did not enjoy this book as much as I have the others in the series. I hope the next in the series is better than this one.

I enjoyed this book and was surprised at the ending. I am looking forward to reading more books by Livia J. Washburn.

always as good as their word.
The book has always been in good condition
and on time.

Killer Crab Cakes is Livia Washburn's fourth mystery featuring retired school teacher Phyllis Newsom; the twist here is the change of venue. Phyllis and her band of friends/boarders/love interest have travelled en masse to a coastal bed and breakfast to look after things while the owner, Phyllis's cousin, is away. Like the previous outings, this one is set in Texas, so the first question readers have is "where are the Rangers?" when the bodies start dropping like flies--in the case of the first corpse, it's a literal drop off the side of a pier. But it's not drowning that does in the victim; he's ingested poison (Killer Crab Cakes--get it?). Does the sheriff shutdown the kitchen? No. Does he call in the Texas Rangers for help? No. Does Phyllis withhold valuable evidence from the cops, as she is wont to do in her previous adventures? Yes.

I am not going to spoil the mystery for you, but if you haven't figured out who the perp is by the page 50, then you're not reading carefully. But even if you do, you will likely keep reading as I did if for no other reason than to count the number of times Phyllis lies, obscures the truth, or otherwise interferes with the investigation. None of this is new ground for Phyllis (or Washburn) but the extreme stupidity of some of her stunts really boggles the mind.

I also have a bone to pick with the characterization of Phyllis's boy toy, Sam the retired teacher. I do not remember what subject Sam taught, but I assume it was shop and I sure hope it wasn't English: he drops the "g" off all his gerunds, and he uses folksy mispronunciations (e.g., "fella") all the time. In short Sam sounds more at home around the cracker barrel than in front of the blackboard. I guess this failed attempt at using imperfect diction to create a genuine character wouldn't bother me so much if the rest of novel had any basis in reality. It doesn't. A good cozy should seem plausible on every level. But in Killer Crab Cakes plausibility takes a long walk off a short pier.