Customer Reviews

Nutty As a Fruitcake (Bed-And-Breakfast Mysteries)

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

 

 

I so enjoyed this series in the beginning, but now I only hold them in a fall back position whilst I'm waiting for other books to arrive from Amazon. Sadly, I bought the whole series and it's doubtful that I'll ever finish them.
Judith is rude, arrogant, deceitful, disloyal, a liar and a thief. Not bad for someone married to a cop. Again, she treats the police as stupid and interferring in HER investigation. She is guilty of breaking and entering, stealing evidence from a crime scene, withholding evidence from the police and a multitude of other haneous faults that are annoying. Granted, this is fiction, but c'mon, how about a little bit of reality?? I've read other mysteries where the main character is NOT a PI or a policeman and they seem to be able to know their place and work WITH the police, not independently of them.
I can't imagine how the character Joe puts up with this tedious woman as well as her mother, the hateful and nasty Gertrude. Gertie was amusing and fun in the beginning but now it's easy to see where Judith gets her lack of charm and manners.
I read for pleasure, I expect there to be some artistic license taken on occasion, but the whole book???
And could someone tell me just which one of the policeman's eyes is patched? The book refers both his left and his right as being the good eye. Perhaps at the end, he'll just be a cop playing dress up?
I HAVE to find something else to read for my fall back position, these are getting just to awful.

UGH!! I have read every mystery in this series so far. I keep reading them because I love the setting, etc, and try my best to ignore the lead character. But I can do it no longer. The Bed and Breakfast series makes me feel like I am reading about the Betty Crocker 1950's. Judith's prizewinning husband is truly a jackass, and she simpers and caters to him like a spineless idiot. What good old Joe needs is a boot out the door. Maybe then Judith could be the independant character she showed the potential of being in the first book of the series. Ane Renie! Oh please! If I read one more time about how Bill had to have his dinner on time every day....if he's so worried about it, let him cook it himself! I just hope that the much better Alpine series by the same author never becomes this disgusting.

I've read every one of Mary Daheim's bed and breakfast mysteries and enjoyed them all. They are funny and meant to be. I love the characters of Gertie and Reenie and laugh out loud at their speech. Set in Heraldsgate(which is a little like Seattle)some of the humor is more obvious to those of us fortunate enough to live in the Pacific Northwest. This book is fun to read at the holiday season.

It's Christmas time, and Judith Flynn has decided that she and the neighbors on her cul-de-sac should celebrate by decorating their houses. Eveyone thinks it's a great idea except for the crabby Enid Goodrich who seems to be lacking in Christmas spirit. She has been a detriment to the neighborhood for some time and it's hard to find genuine sympathy among her neighbors when she is killed with a hatchet just before Christmas. Of course this means that there are lots of suspects because Enid has offended almost everyone she has come in contact with. This includes her rather unsavory relatives who dislike her as much as everyone else. Judith and her cousin, Renie, do their usual sleuthing job and Judith finally comes up with the identity of the killer. This is enjoyable reading for fans of this genre.

I usually enjoy Mary Daheim's books. They are improbable but entertaining. This one is beyond the pale. Judith intrudes on a police investigation without reason or invitation. She invites the woman who stole her fiance, leaving her pregnant and with no alternative than the awful Dan, and that's just the beginning. I lost all sympathy for the doormat, and her investigations annoyed me. I ended up giving the book away.

This is one book in a series of bed-and-breakfast mysteries set in Seattle, Washington. Anyone familiar with the city can tell that the author, Mary Daheim, has changed the place names, but retained the feel of the city in accurate descriptions. Heraldsgate Hill is really Queen Anne Hill. Norway General Hospital is really Swedish Hospital. Papaya Pete's restaurant is really Trader Vics. Donner and Blitzen department store is really the now defunct Frederick and Nelsons. Nordquist is Nordstroms. The Belle Epoch is The Bon Marche, now known just as The Bon. Moonbeams coffee house is really Starbucks, and so on. The descriptions are so accurately and fondly drawn that the reader experiences a warm sense of being there, especially if one has actually lived in Seattle at one time. The relationships of the characters are sometimes feisty but honest and often very funny. I recommend this whole series.

Mary Daheim's Bed & Breakfast series is definitely one of the best amateur sleuth series written.

The Hillside Manor Bed & Breakfast is definitely thriving w/ action, adventure, mayhem, merriment & ...murder. Yep, there seems to be bodies scattered all about the Pacific Northwest.

Just be prepared when you check in.

Judith McMonigle Flynn is too much...fun. She's absolutely exhilarating! Her cousin Renie is bubbling over w/ exuberance. The two together is the perfect definition of the term
"madcap hijinks".


Nutty as a Fruitcake is a side-splitting experience. I laughed so hard I just couldn't control my fits of laughter.

I tend to make sure I'm not alone reading this delightful cozies in public. One may think I'm balmy for roaring the way I do.


Nutty as a Fruitcake is the 10th Bed & Breakfast mystery. The creative Mary Daheim pulls no punches w/ the characters, plot & mystery.

Kudos to Daheim for keeping the series fresh w/o recycling previous storylines!


Nutty as a Fruitcake is a must read for cozy mystery lovers because it's a truly delightful experience. Wickedly delicious!

Judith's mother Gertrude is unquestionably a remarkable standout!

Long-time readers of the series will absolutely adore Nutty as a Fruitcake & new readers will no doubt want to pick up the earlier books in this whimsical series!!!

Now here's a mystery with every contemporary cliche imaginable: it's a mystery, with a woman detective, who owns a bed-and-breakfast, likes to cook and has a catering business, is married to a cop, and lives in suburbia. Any ONE of these overworked fads of contemporary popular mystery novels would have worked, but all of them together--is, well, breathtaking. And there's not much that saves it, either: the plot line is bogged down by all the trickery that the author needs in order to weave all the cliches into the book, and Dalheim's prose is strictly second rate. The best moments in it belong to the crusty mother of the heroine, a nasty witch who says exactly what's on her mind, directly and without artifice. Perhaps Daheim would benefit from a lesson offered by one of her own characters.....