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.