HONEY BAKED HOMICIDE by Gayle Leeson

Publisher:     Berkley

Published:     December 5, 2017

ISBN:        978-1101990827

Genre:      Cozy Mystery

Format:     Print

Obtained via:  Publisher

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina  myreviewbooks@aol.com

TWO-1/2 HEARTS

 

Business at the Down South Café is doing quite well and now proprietor Amy Flowers has decided to add some local honey to the local items available for sale.  Local beekeeper Stu Landon’s first delivery sells out so fast Amy ventures out to his farm to see about having him deliver more the next day.  Stu agrees to do so.  He shows up the next morning, only it’s not honey he has in his truck.  No, it’s Stu himself and someone has killed him.  Amid rumors of a difficult neighbour several new people arrive in town.  Since the Down South Café is one of Winter Garden’s more popular spots for the townsfolk to gather the residents come for news and some good food.  Amy tries her best to stay out of things, but when her life is threatened she finds herself on the trail of a killer.

I really liked books 1 and 2 of Gayle Leeson’s Down South Café Mysteries and was looking forward to her latest, Honey-Baked Homicide.  I’m not sure what happened between the two books but for most of this one I wondered if someone else had done the writing.  It was not the same engaging, down home comfort read I’ve come to expect from Ms. Leeson.  The writing was stilted and read more like someone in grammar school wrote it for someone at that level rather than a seasoned author.  The killer seemed to come out of nowhere.  Maybe it’s because there were some very strong clues going in one direction, but I wondered at the end if the author didn’t know who it was herself and then went with the most creative.  There were leaps in some of the clues and factual inaccuracies that could have been presented correctly with just a little research. 

I like the characters.  Dilly and Aunt Bess are a hoot.  And the premise of the killer in HONEY BAKED HOMICIDE was a good one. 

This is an objective review and not an endorsement of this book.

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