An Amish
Candy Shop Mystery sounded intriguing, if sticky
-- so I indulged my sweet tooth with LETHAL LICORICE. I was
actually surprised that there would be a competition among
Amish candy makers -- I thought that would lead to pride.
The small town of Harvest, Ohio hosts a contest and
contenders come from all around. Bailey King has come here
from a job as a chocolatier and runs her late grandfather's
store. She's not Amish, nor trying to pretend she is. But
some folks object to her taking her grandfather's place --
even if she uses all the same implements and traditional
methods.
Looking for Jethro, her pet pig, Bailey trots inside the
local church. Jethro loves the Reverend. But the church
today holds a tragic situation. Someone has died in the
church organ, or died and been pushed in through the little
door. Deputy Aiden Brody has a case on his hands.
Family matters -- Bailey learning that she has cousins, for
a start -- and taffy pulling merge irresistibly into a
smooth, sweet background for this energetic mystery. The
local ladies give Bailey advice on marrying -- sooner rather
than later, they say, and she should lock down Aiden Brady
-- but a large part of their enthusiasm is because they
think women should have lots of babies instead of running
shops. Bailey's not averse to marrying, but right now she
needs to track down some traditional peppermint or licorice
extracts.
Enjoy the mystery, the past mingling with present, and the
nicely drawn characters. At the end there's a recipe for a
licorice treat. It takes almost that long to find the poor
pig, and I won't reveal where. Amanda Flower will keep you
guessing with LETHAL LICORICE the second in her lively
series.
Harvest, Ohio, is a long way from New York City, where
Bailey King left a coveted job as a head chocolatier to take
over Swissmen Sweets, her Amish grandparents’ candy shop.
Now, while caring for her recently widowed grandmother, she
plans to honor her grandfather’s memory by entering the
annual Amish Confectionery Competition. But between lavender
blueberry fudge and chocolate cherry ganache truffles,
Bailey may have bitten off more than she can chew when the
search for a missing pot-bellied pig turns up a body
suffering from sugar overload—the fatal kind . . .
A candy maker from a neighboring town who wanted Englischer
Bailey disqualified for being an outsider, Josephine Weaver
died from an allergy to an essential licorice ingredient.
The suspects include: Josephine’s niece, a young woman going
through her rumspringa, or running around time, and Bailey
herself. Now it falls to Bailey, who’s sweet on the local
sheriff’s deputy, to clear their names and entice a killer
with a cast-iron stomach for cold-blooded murder.
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