Cinnamon Roll Murder

January 9, 2012
At the start of bestseller Fluke’s savory 15th Hannah Swensen mystery set in Lake Eden, Minn. (after 2011’s Devil’s Food Cake Murder), Hannah and her sister, Michelle, are en route to deliver cinnamon rolls to the Lake Eden Inn. When they come to a multicar pileup on a slick roadway, the sisters hurry to check on the passengers of an overturned bus in a ditch. What they find is a dead driver and minor injuries among members of the Cinnamon Roll Six, a jazz band booked to perform at the inn. At the local hospital, the keyboard player’s relatively minor injury lands him in an ER exam room, where a short time later he’s found stabbed to death. Hannah flips open her murder book and launches into action, with scarcely a police presence. Recipes and passages devoted to cooking and eating overshadow the sleuthing. The basic plot wraps to a satisfying conclusion, but the overall feel is overdone foodie and underdone characters. Author tour.

September 1, 2012

The delectable duo of cookie baker-cum-amateur sleuth Hannah Swensen and narrator Suzanne Toren return with another scrumptious murder. When the keyboardist for the Cinnamon Roll Six jazz band is murdered practically right under her mother's nose, Hannah knows that she had better solve this case fast. Meanwhile, the marriage of her ex-boyfriend Norman Rhodes and Doc Bev is imminent, and people are coming out of the woodwork begging Hannah to stop it. Toren's calm demeanor reflects Hannah's lack of alarm over dead bodies. Imagining Norman married to that scheming, cat-hating dentist leaves Hannah less sanguine. VERDICT Toren wears the denizens of Lake Eden so comfortably, it's difficult to remember that they are fictional. The delectable recipes would really work better as a PDF accompanying the CDs, but at least Toren's voice has no calories. [The Kensington hc was a New York Times best seller.--Ed.]--Jodi L. Israel, MLS, Birmingham, AL

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