Book Review: Pink Lemonade Cake Murder by Joanne Fluke (Hannah Swensen #29)

Stars: 2 out of 5

Pros: Characters we love; delicious sounding recipes

Cons: The plot really doesn’t work

The Bottom Line:

Baseball and murder

In another weak entry

Recipes sound good

Three Strikes, You’re Dead

As soon as I saw the title for the newest Hannah Swensen Mystery, I knew it had to be a summer book.  What’s more summer than pink lemonade?  Naturally, I was right as the book is set near the start of summer and involves a baseball tournament in town.  Since I always enjoy it when I can read a book during the season when it is set, I’m glad I was able to work in Pink Lemonade Cake Murder before summer officially ends.

This is the twenty-ninth book in the Hannah Swensen series.  If you aren’t familiar with it, yes, this is a culinary cozy.  Hannah runs a cookie shop in the town of Lake Eden, Minnesota.  And she has the unfortunate habit of stumbling across dead bodies next to her latest culinary creations.

Lake Eden is celebrating the summer solstice by hosting a baseball tournament for the high schools in the region.  There’s also an All-Star competition, which is why Bernie “No-No” Fulton is back in town.  He’s a local who went on to pitch for the Twins for a part of a season before he left for less than stellar reasons.

Unfortunately, the first day of the tournament, someone kills No-No.  Even worse, Hannah’s mother finds the body under the bleachers.  Delores has a grudge against No-No as well, so Hannah jumps into the investigation.  Can she figure out who wanted to strike No-No out permanently?

There’s also a sub-plot with Mike, the local detective and one of Hannah’s love interests, dealing with burn out.  Unfortunately, that isn’t really handled the best way possible, and it slows down the main mystery at the beginning of the book.

Then there’s the talk of food.  I read plenty of culinary cozies, so I’m used to them, but again, it takes over the book at times, really slowing things down.

The mystery itself was decent.  It was more of a novella sized mystery stretched to turn it into a novel.  Obviously, since I read cozies, I’m willing to give authors and characters leeway in how they work together with the police to solve the crime.  This book went well beyond believability for me, which is saying something since this series has already stretched things pretty thin.

So why do I keep reading the series?  It is book 29, and I’m very invested at this point.  I do love the characters, and I enjoy seeing what they are up to.

On the other hand, this is one of the series that gives love triangles a bad name.

And the cliffhanger that ends the book?  We are right back in soap opera territory.

As always, the recipes in the book sound delicious.  Frankly, they are another reason I still look forward to the books, not that I’ve made any for years.  By my count, we get twenty-three new recipes here.  They are mostly desserts, although there are a couple of slow cooker recipes and a few drink recipes in that mix.

I will still continue to recommend the early books in this series.  For fans still reading these books, you know what to expect here.  There won’t be anything to change your mind about the series in Pink Lemonade Cake Murder, so keep that in mind before you pick up the book.

Here are the rest of the Hannah Swensen Mysteries.