(with thanks to lavenderandlovage.com for the picture)
Caught Bread Handed by Ellie Alexander was a fun romp in a genre I - and we at Cooking with Ideas - know well. It is cozy mystery with a female amateur sleuth who works in the food-related business (in this case bakeshop that focuses on bread) and has a romantic interest (a husband but a complex potential commuting situation) in a small-is town with a tourist industry (Ashland, Oregon with a Shakespeare Festival). Yep, a genre. It comes complete with recipes at the end.
The author (as described on her site, linked above) is a Pacific Northwest native (which shows) and is on #13 of her Bakeshop mysteries (yes, this is one of many). Like many such authors of series fiction, she writes several other series as well.
I like this one - though I have not binged the series. A few items that made me like it:
- While there is the usual somewhat tiresome romantic subplot, this one is not run of the mill (at least at this point in the series): it involves a married couple (with the woman as the amateur sleuth) who were together on a cruise ship for some years but are now struggling with whether they will stay apart of both move to Ashland or return to the ship together.
- I like the lead character, Jules Capshaw, and the ways she is connected to the foodie world through female friendship (yes, another trope of the genre but done well here) as she goes to a baking class and then connects strongly to the woman whose bread shop is key to the tale. The notion that the character is learning baking bread rather than an expert helps avoid the didacticism that sometimes appears in the food-related aspects of foodie mysteries.
- Of course, I am a sucker for a punny title.
- I like it that the professional law enforcement in the novel is NOT the amateur sleuth's soon-to-be boyfriend. Nope. This time the character - who is well drawn but not intrusive into the story - is dating Jules' mother.
- While the trope of newcomer to town with a business that jars the town's culture is not novel (see what I did there?), it is done well in this version, including being not as obvious a red herring as some red herrings can be.
Those are fairly general comments. What about the mystery itself? Well, this one kept me hanging - though you know I am not always good at figuring out the puzzle - and I was pleasantly surprised by it.
Ok, I should say more, but you could click here or here for a different kind of review.
