The Quiche and The Dead
Valentine Harris thought life was going to be great. She would be a business owner and have a new life with her fiancé after moving to the town of San Nicholas, CA. Five months later, her engagement was over. Her dream of running a pie shop was real, but she was barely scraping by. As luck would have it, one of Val’s regular customers dies at the counter while eating one of her quiches. Now she must find the killer to save her business from ruin.
The police determine the customer was poisoned, and business at Pie Town drops to nothing. Val’s flaky, seventy-something pie crust maker Charlene convinces Val that they are both suspects. They decide, Val unwillingly, to investigate on their own. After all, Charlene was a bit odd, and her half-baked hypotheses unlikely. It doesn’t take long for the two of them to uncover some shady hidden dealings and become real targets.
Series: A Pie Town Mystery – Book 1
Author: Kristen Weiss
Genre: Cozy Mystery/Culinary
Publisher: Kensington
Rating:
The Quiche and the Dead is an excellent start to a new series. Kristen Weiss has composed a highly enjoyable and exciting story with a cast of characters the reader will fall in love with. The town of San Nicholas is a quaint setting for this story and holds plenty of mystery that is sure to keep the reader captivated.
Valentine Harris is a great character filled with hopes and dreams and a broken heart. Her life gets thrown into chaos after her fiancé tells her he doesn’t want to get married after all. Unfortunately, he waits to tell her this until after she has moved away from everything and everyone she knows and puts her life’s savings into opening Pie Town. Realizing that she still has feelings for Mark, her ex-fiancé, she tries her best to move on and works night and day to make her shop successful. Val is like a lot of people who put everything they have on the line and risk failure. The character is unmistakably relatable to anyone that has ever had a dream and risked everything to make that dream a reality.
Charlene is one of those eccentric characters that audiences love. She is mischievous, set in her ways, and downright strange. All of these qualities make her a fun and genuinely likable character that readers will want to hear more about. She may be old, but she has spunk and determination that rivals that of anyone half her age.
The remaining characters, especially Petronella Val’s employees, are well rounded and enjoyable. Readers will have mixed feelings about the victims but will ultimately cheer on Val and Charlene in their investigation and unmasking of the killer.
The Quiche and the Dead will leave readers craving pie of all types, and hungry for the next book in the series. The writing is smooth, fast-paced, and filled with details that make you want to visit Pie Town. This book is highly recommended to readers of cozies that keep them on their toes and keeps them guessing until the very end.
Follow the Cozy Review on Bloglovin’
Contact The Cozy Review
Leave a Reply