Murder Leaves a Tart Taste on This Festival
Cathy Wiley’s Fatal Food Festival Mysteries has become a favorite series, so when Lime and Punishment, the fifth in the series, crossed my radar, I jumped right in to the latest adventure.
The series features Jackie Norwood, a former celebrity chef whose career ended thanks to her alcoholism. Now sober, she trying to rebuild her career, and part of that path is as a celebrity guest judge at various food festivals all over the country.
This time, Jackie and her friends have landed in Maverick Key, one of the smaller of the Florida Keys, for their key lime festival. Everyone is happy to be there since it is February. But Jackie is disturbed to find out that two bar owners have been killed in the last few weeks. She was hoping for a more relaxed festival this time, however, it looks like murder has followed her once again. But it’s only after she runs into her high school band teacher and learns he’s the prime suspect that Jackie decides she must investigate. Can she clear her friend of the crime?
As always, the book does a good job of setting up the story while also reintroducing us to Jackie and the rest of the characters. She has quite the entourage who comes with her in every book. Not that I am complaining since I love them. They each contribute something to the enjoyment of each book, and provide the cozy core we might normally miss in a travel-based series. Yet they are balanced well with the suspects, who are entertaining and keep us guessing.
The mystery itself is strong. Once things are set up, we are off with plenty of twists and red herrings to keep us guessing. The ending was completely logical and resolved all my questions.
While you can read this book as a standalone, there are character arcs that are building on what has come before, and you’ll enjoy them best if you’ve read the series in order. But they are all delightful, so that’s not a problem.
Rounding out the ingredients for this book is the humor. There are lots of puns, which I always love. We’ve also got some character-based humor.
And I can’t leave out the recipes. We’ve got several, the majority of which are dessert based, but there are some other choices as well. All of them fit the key lime theme.
As I said, this is a favorite series, and Lime and Punishment was well worth the wait. If you have yet to start this series, you’ll want to start following Jackie around the country today.
Travel to the rest of the Fatal Food Festival Mysteries.
NOTE: I received an ARC of this book.
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