Yep, you read about Mary Daheim recently in Cooking with Ideas - a book I did not recommend focused on a bier - and on a totally unbelievable narrative in which a B&B operator takes a non-vacation to Alberta. I bought it because. . . well, Alberta. And, the thing was - I could not suspend my disbelief for one moment. The book read like a parody and I do not think it was intended to parody cozy mysteries focused on food, on B&Bs or, for that matter, on Alberta.
Despite that, I bought another (cheap and used) book (yep, not on Kindle) by Mary Daheim. And, I enjoyed it - not merely for its holiday theme; not merely because it was an actual book, and not merely because COVID is driving us all to lower our standards. I enjoyed it because it was a better book than the other one!
The title: Nutty as a Fruitcake. Published in 1996, apparently Daheim was better at plots, believable characters, and just plain fun in the 1990s than. . . well, perhaps the most recent effort was a fluke! Another B&B mystery, this one features the effort of a neighborhood to decorate for the holidays mostly for Christmas but including a token Jewish family as well as a kind of refusenik family which is just basically a dour family which . . . well, that would be giving away too much. Indeed, the back of the book says "from grouch to grinch to ghost." So, you can likely guess.
No, this is not one of those mysteries with recipes - though it did inspire a whole raft of googling around the notion of fruitcake. I will spare you - since you too can google in the vast free time when you are not otherwise engaged.
I do think this was worth the few bits I spent in a used bookstore - and I recommend you - just once in a while, while masked and socially distanced - take the risk and buy an actual book. It feels good in ones hands, and makes a lovely thunk when it drops to the floor from your hand as you doze.
Hope the holidays are not unduly nutty for you.
