Ricki’s Past, Family, and a Christmas Murder
It’s no secret I love Christmas, so I’m always happy when I see a series I enjoy has a Christmas offering. One of this year’s new Christmas cozy mysteries is Ellen Byron’s Crescent City Christmas Chaos, the fourth entry in her Vintage Cookbook Mysteries. As expected, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
This series features Ricki James-Diaz who owns a vintage cookbook and cooking utensil gift shop in one of the historic mansions in New Orleans. The mansion is opened for tours, and so Ricki has a steady stream of customers. She’s moved back to the city in order to find out more about her birth family since she was adopted as a baby. She’s hoping to make some headway this year since her parents have come to town as a surprise for the holidays.
But her mom seems reluctant to talk about that part of their past. Ricki does find one of her mom’s old co-workers, but the day after meeting her, the woman turns up dead. Unfortunately, Ricki’s mom soon finds herself a suspect in the case, and the longer the case drags on, the more of Ricki’s friends and family find themselves suspects. With the police trying to juggle too many cases, Ricki jumps in to try to solve this one. Can she do it?
There is a lot going on here between the main mystery and several subplots. In lesser hands, it might have led to chaos, but Ellen Byron does a great job of balancing everything. This also means that the story is always moving forward and I was never bored. The mystery itself moved forward at a steady pace, and I enjoyed following Ricki as she figured things out. The ending made sense when we got there.
I will say there were a couple of things in the first third that made me scratch my head and should have been caught in a good edit. I was reading an ARC, so hopefully they were tweaked. Either way, they are minor and don’t really impact the story in any way.
Ellen’s series tend to attract characters. That’s not a complaint, just a statement of fact. I enjoyed getting to spend time with them again and making some new friends. After all, this is the most time that Ricki’s parents have had in a book, for example. All the characters get a moment to shine, which is another testament to Ellen’s ability to juggle it all. There is a cast of characters at the beginning, although you’ll enjoy getting to know the characters best from reading the series in order. There are some minor spoilers for ongoing storylines here, too, if you don’t go back to the beginning.
And yes, the Christmas setting was tons of fun, as I knew it would be. Some elements were pretty funny, and others were charming and cozy. If you save this one for December, you’ll be glad, but it can give you the Christmas feeling no matter when you read it.
Speaking of Christmas, the recipes at the back of the book focus on a New Orleans Christmas tradition I hadn’t heard of before. A Réveillon Dinner is a special dinner served after the midnight mass. And yes, Ellen adapted the recipes from vintage cookbooks in her collection as always.
With Christmas just a few weeks away, now is the time to start planning your holiday cozies. Whether you read Crescent City Christmas Chaos now or wait to savor it during December, you’ll be glad you picked it up.
Be sure to check out the rest of the Vintage Cookbook Mysteries.
NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for stopping by. In order to combat spam, I moderate most comments. I'll get to your comment as soon as I can.