Kappy King and the Pickle Kaper

April 15, 2018
A quiet Amish community is rattled by the death of a young girl.Even though she makes the kapps (women's head coverings) for her community of Blue Sky, Pennsylvania, Kappy King has always been a marginal figure. Perhaps that's why she's befriended flamboyant Edie Peachey and her brother, Jimmy, who has Down syndrome. Edie's under a bann after leaving the church and living as an Englischer, but when her mother was murdered, she came home to care for Jimmy and helped Kappy solve the mystery (Kappy King and the Puppy Kaper, 2017). After Sally June Esh's buggy is run off the road and she's killed while making the family pickle delivery, Edie gets a series of cryptic texts hinting that the death was no accident. Edie refuses to show the texts to detective Jack Jones, knowing that he'll confiscate her phone; instead, she and Kappy decide to do a little sleuthing on their own. But there's a problem. Although Edie's dedicated to her brother and respects his love for their little farm and dog breeding business, she may not be ready to return to the church, and until she does, no one but Kappy will talk to her. All the while, Kappy's still trying to decide whether she should marry Hiram, the widower of her best friend. Hiram's particularly worried about his younger brother, Willie, who's often taken off on adventures but this time is gone longer than usual. Kappy's also attracted to Silas Hershberger, whose aunt has just moved back from Lancaster and wants to establish her own pickles as supreme. Would Bettie Hershberger really kill someone over pickles? Kappy and Edie travel by buggy and car all over the valley attending everything from funerals to rock concerts while trying to figure out whether Sally June's death was accident or murder.Plenty of details about the Amish lifestyle and a more complex mystery than the heroine's first case.

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May 28, 2018
The death of 19-year-old Sally June Esh, who was driving a pickle delivery wagon when she was hit by a car on a rural road in Blue Sky, Pa., kick starts Lillard’s middling sequel to 2017’s Kappy King and the Puppy Kaper. The day after the tragedy, puppy breeder Edie Peachey, who was raised Amish but later left the church, receives an anonymous text message: “Some accidents are not accidents.” Convinced this is a reference to the fatal buggy crash, Edie persuades her friend Kathryn “Kappy” King, with whom she did some sleuthing in the previous book, to go to Sally June’s funeral to look for anyone who might have wished the young woman harm. Kappy soon has a number of suspects, including Bettie Hershberger, who’s intent on making her green pickles more popular than the Esh family’s white ones. The mutual attraction between Edie and Jack Jones, the detective on the case, generates a little romantic tension, as does Kappy’s interest in two Amish men. Appealing characters make up only in part for the slow pace and lack of suspense. Agent: Mary Sue Seymour, Seymour Agency.