Scorched Eggs by Laura Childs

First Line: Suzanne didn't know how she felt about Blond Bombshell No. 4 as a hair color, but she was about to find out.

The last thing Suzanne expected when she stopped in at Root 66 to have her hair colored was to witness an explosion and fire at the County Services office next door. The fire department does its best, but Hannah Venable-- friend to all at the Cackleberry Club-- loses her life in the conflagration. When arson is confirmed, Suzanne, Petra, and Toni want to know if Hannah was the intended victim, and if she was... why?

In this latest installment of the Cackleberry Club series, I found the personal lives of the main characters to be much more interesting than the mystery. Suzanne's fixated in the difference in age between herself and Sam, the man in her life who has something important he wants to say to her. Toni's dingbat ex-husband Junior is up to his usual silliness, and if you're going to insist on sticking your nose into murder, it's best to be on good terms with the local sheriff like Suzanne is.  The best parts of the book actually seemed to be when food was involved. (There's some excellent recipes and a list of resources in the back of the book.)

It didn't take me very long at all to figure out the true focus of the fire, and that wildlife would play a part in the ending. Which reminds me of something else: if a baby bird falls out of a tree and isn't the least bit hurt, wouldn't it be better to put it back up in the tree where the parent can find it easily rather than try to haul it around with you and add keeping it warm and fed to your long list of things to do?  I know... it wouldn't fit in with the story very well. And that brings to mind something that Suzanne found at the crime scene that stayed in her pocket much too long. All in all, I think my tendency to find fault with Scorched Eggs (which I've kept to a bare minimum here) to be a sign that-- unfortunately-- the story just didn't hold my interest nearly as well as other books in the series.
 

Scorched Eggs by Laura Childs

ISBN: 9780425255599

Berkley © 2014

Hardcover, 320 pages

Cozy Mystery, #6 Cackleberry Club mystery

Rating: C+

Source: the author 

Stake & Eggs by Laura Childs

First Line: Ice pellets blasted the windows of the Cackleberry Club.

It's whiteout conditions in Kindred, Minnesota, and everyone has headed for home. Now that the Cackleberry Club Café is cleaned up and ready for the next day's business, home is exactly where owner Suzanne Dietz and her two partners Toni and Petra are headed, too... until the sounds of a racing snowmobile and a crash make Suzanne race out the backdoor into the snow.

She finds bank president Ben Busacker's decapitated body thrown from his wrecked snowmobile-- and a wire strung tightly between two poles. The murder has occurred right in time for the Fire and Ice winter festival, and it chills Suzanne to the bone knowing that she may very well be serving ham and eggs to the murderer in her very own café. The problem is that Busacker was the most hated man in town, foreclosing on well-liked farmers and turning others down for loans. The local sheriff needs all the help he can get in narrowing down the list of suspects, and with everyone beating a path to Suzanne's door, she thinks she's going to be just the woman to pare down that list.

This fourth book was my introduction to this mystery series featuring three women in their forties who have banded together in business and in friendship after dealing with the loss of their husbands.  Suzanne is the star of the show, and the mastermind behind the café, bookstore and yarn shop. Although everyone in town seems to come to her for help, she's not your usual "Mother Earth" type. If she feels that she-- or anyone else-- is being pushed around, she has no problem with getting in the guilty person's face and telling him what's what. She also has a tendency to shout a bit and share pieces of her mind with everyone when she's on an adrenaline rush-- something that brand-new beau Sam Hazelet can deal with.

Most of the humor in the book belongs to Suzanne's friend and business partner, Toni, who's tiny and opinionated and has an on-again-off-again relationship with Junior, a parolee who isn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier. Junior is a mechanic who loves get rich quick schemes, and his latest invention, the Car Cooker, is a hoot. (Especially if it comes with a cocktail-shaker attachment....)

I sometimes felt a bit out-of-the-loop with Suzanne, her friends, and all the various relationships and histories, so I think that this is a series that might best be started from the beginning. However, the story is well-told, with very plausible red herrings that can easily lead a reader astray, and it's filled with a cast of characters that genuinely care for each other and enjoy each other's company. There's action when it's least expected, and the humor can sneak up and make a person laugh out loud. Yes indeed, it would be very easy for me to become a regular at the Cackleberry Club Café.

Stake & Eggs by Laura Childs

ISBN: 9780425255575

Berkley Prime Crime © 2012

Mass Market Paperback, 304 pages

Cozy Mystery, #4 Cackleberry Club mystery

Rating: B

Source: The author.