Chocolate and Cheese Make a Deadly Pairing
If a main character in a mystery series has something interesting in her past, you know that it will eventually show up in the series. That’s the case for Willa Bauer in Bait and Swiss, the sixth Cheese Shop Mystery from Korina Moss. And it makes for another great entry.
As this book opens, Willa is looking forward to celebrating the second anniversary of her cheese shop, Curds & Whey, in the small town of Yarrow Glen. In that time, she’s come to love the friends she’s made with her neighbors and employees. It’s why she is happy for Hope, who is about to celebrate the grand opening of her rebranded Cakery (a bakery focused on cakes). However, that celebration comes with a bitter surprise for Willa. Hope has teamed up with Chocolate Bliss to offer specialty chocolate.
Willa knows the two owners of Chocolate Bliss all too well – her ex-fiancé who left her for her ex-best friend. With both of them in town, she is going to be forced to deal with feelings she’d been trying to avoid for years.
But then someone dies, and it looks like they were poisoned by some chocolates. The question becomes, who was the intended victim? Can Willa figure out what is going on?
Before we get any further, I do need to point at that Willa does something pretty stupid near the beginning of the book. I’m not talking about stupid because you are the character in a book, which I can usually forgive. I’m talking about something that made no sense other than to make her a suspect. As head scratching as it was, it is a minor part of the book.
And the rest of the book is great. There are many different questions that Willa needs to answer, so there is always something to confuse us. I did feel things got a little over complicated at the end, but ultimately, everything made sense.
Over the course of these six books, we’ve made some good friends, and I enjoyed spending time with many of them again. The core cast is present, and I love them. It was nice to see some advancement in their lives. We also got to see some characters we haven’t seen much in the last couple of books, which I greatly enjoyed. Naturally, there are some new characters who make for excellent suspects.
As I always talk about, Yarrow Glen is supposedly in Sonoma County, an area I grew up in in Northern California. It is always nice to return fictionally.
And if you are expecting some cheese related recipes, you’ll be rewarded. There are three, and they all sound delicious if you love cheese. Which is almost everyone, right?
Bait and Swiss will please fans of the series. If you enjoy a good culinary cozy mystery and haven’t read this series yet, fix that today.
Be sure to check out the rest of the Cheese Shop Mysteries.
I love a book set in places that you have lived in!
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