In the small town of Broken Rope, Missouri, a thriving
cooking school owned by Missouri Winston is getting ready
for its annual cleaning. Miz (as she's known by the locals)
is assisted by her granddaughter Isabelle, known to most as
Betts. Their plans get tossed to the side, though, when
Betts gets a call from town's archivist and fake sheriff,
Jake. He suggests that a busload of travelling foodies with
no place to stay (due to scheduling mishap at the local
hotel) stay at the cooking school for the night. This seems
like a workable solution until the foodies show up and
everyone realizes the retiree tourists won't be content on cots.
Betts works out a deal with a fellow Broken Rope local who
is getting ready to open a bed-and-breakfast. Everything
seems to be going well until Betts gets a call that three of
the foodies have disappeared without a trace. Betts turns
to Cliff, one of the local police officers for help. While
Betts trusts Cliff (they are dating, rekindling a high
school romance), she worries that a small town police force
can't handle a triple kidnapping case.
This is complicated by another special relationship that
Betts has... with ghosts. Both Betts and Miz are able to
see and talk to ghosts, and as Broken Rope has a long
history with criminals, there are several haunting the small
town. While Miz is used to this, Betts is still geting
acclimated to this newfound talent. Sally Swarthmore is
infamous in Broken Rope for having killed both of her
parents with an axe one afternoon. She was convicted of the
double murder and died shortly after the trial. Sally
appears to Betts, and asks Betts to help her find her diary.
She believes that the diary holds evidence that the murder
of her parents was justified.
I had read the first book in the Country Cooking School
Mystery Series, and I really looked forward to reading this
book. The characters were just as fun and quirky as I
remembered them, and I was happy to visit Broken Rope again.
As someone who has always been fascinated by Lizzie Borden,
I recognized Sally's story as a take of Lizzie's, and I was
glad that Ms. Shelton acknowledged the parallels in the
afterword. While I enjoyed both mysteries in this book, it
was a little confusing about which one was supposed to the
main story and which was the subplot, as they each seemed
equally important (this is a very minor consideration, as it
may have been the point to have two simultaneous mysteries).
I was also disappointed that the solution to both mysteries
was pretty obvious from the start. However, this will not
stop me from making it a point to keep this series on my
wish list!
At Gram’s Country Cooking School in Broken Rope, Missouri, Isabelle “Betts” Winston and her grandmother share the secrets of delicious home-style recipes. But there’s one secret they keep from their classes—their ability to talk to ghosts from the town’s colorful past… Betts and Gram agree to help their friend Jake at Broken Rope’s Historical Society by accommodating some foodie tourists for the night and occupying them with cooking lessons. It couldn’t be worse timing when the pair encounter the ax-wielding ghost of Sally Swarthmore, one of Broken Rope’s legendary murderers, who pleads with Betts to help find her diary--a diary that could prove that Sally was really a victim, not a villain.
But they soon have a modern-day murder on their hands when one of the tourists turns up dead with a noose around his neck and two other tourists are nowhere to be found. Now Betts needs to put the cooking classes on the back burner to untangle two knotty mysteries and rope in a cold-blooded killer.
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