Author: Meri Allen
Series: Ice Cream Shop Mysteries #1
Genre: Cozy Mystery, Fiction
First published July 27, 2021
Book description: Justice will be swirled by amateur sleuth Riley Rhodes in the first in Meri Allen's brand-new mystery series!
Riley Rhodes, travel food blogger and librarian at the CIA, makes a bittersweet return to her childhood home of Penniman, Connecticut - land of dairy farms and covered bridges - for a funeral. Despite the circumstances, Riley's trip home is sprinkled with reunions with old friends, visits to her father's cozy bookshop on the town green, and joyful hours behind the counter at the beloved Udderly Delicious Ice Cream Shop. It feels like a time to help her friend Caroline rebuild after her mother's death, and for Riley to do a bit of her own reflecting after a botched undercover mission in Italy. After all, it's always good to be home.
But Caroline and her brother Mike have to decide what to do with the assets they've inherited - the ice cream shop as well as the farm they grew up on - and they've never seen eye to eye. Trouble begins to swirl as Riley is spooked by reports of a stranger camping behind the farm and by the odd behavior of the shop's mascot, Caroline's snooty Persian, Sprinkles. When Mike turns up dead in the barn the morning after the funeral, the peace and quiet of Penniman seems upended for good. Can Riley find the killer before another body gets scooped?
Review:
Mixed feelings about this one. It's a nice cozy mystery, quick and easy to read.
As usual, the one downside I see in it is that the characters just did not sit right with me. I hope they grow on me in the next installment.
This is a classic cozy mystery, it's a good introductory book, containing it's own mystery that is fully solved so it could be read as a standalone with no annoying cliffhanger for the next installment. It starts with our MC Riley Rhodes who is posing as a librarian, but what most of her family and friends do not know is that she is actually part of the CIA. In her last assignment, due to the handsome flirty man, Riley gets duped and he manages to steal a very valuable thing from under her nose. So she decides to lay low and take some time off work. It's not actually stated if she's on suspension, on vacation, or if she was fired. I think it would be an exaggeration to be fired for it but who knows how a governmental agency works?
Riley returned to her hometown to offer emotional support to her best friend Caroline after finding out her mother had passed. Caroline and her brother, Mike, have inherited their family’s business and seem to be at odds over how to handle things. While that is still trying to figure out how to handle it Mike turned out murdered and his girlfriend a famous tennis player is missing. That's how it all starts.
Riley is sure that Caroline is not involved in the deaths and is determined to figure out who the culprit was and also she decides to leave her CIA job and now be the manager of the beloved family business Delicious Ice Cream Shop.
There is a lot of suspension of disbelief, especially as you follow everything from Riley's POV, she was a few days previously part of the CIA and she even went undercover all over the world, so how can she be so naive, and careless?
Anyhow the background in something related to law enforcement provides a logical jump on why she gets involved to try to solve crimes.
There is a small-town vibe that provides a great atmosphere, I just love this setting. Also, it tries to be humorous and quirky. We have of course a love interest happening with an officer who is part of the investigation, as it happens I have seen that in several cozy mysteries so maybe that's a cliche of the genre.
It was picked simply because I wanted to read the second installment of this series as part of the Buzzwordathon. I am of course going to continue the series.
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