Monday, March 27, 2017

When the Grits Hit the Fan by Maddie Day




The third book in The Country Store Mystery series from Maddie Day comes out this week from Kensington. It's called When the Grits Hit the Fan. Maddie Day is the pseudonym of Edith Maxwell, who is up for two Agatha Awards this year under her own name - one for best historical novel (Delivering the Truth) and one for best short story (The Mayor and the Midwife). 

Kerry Hammond reviews When the Grits hit the fan today...




I love a good small town cozy mystery, so I was excited to try this series, even if I had to jump in at book three.


In the story our protagonist, Robbie, has opened her breakfast and lunch restaurant for evening meetings of the Indiana University’s Sociology Department as a favor to her graduate student friend, Lou. She starts to rethink her decision when Professor Charles Stilton starts trouble at the meeting, insulting not only Lou but other members of the department.



When Robbie and Lou go snowshoeing the morning after a particularly troubled meeting, they find Charles below the ice of a frozen lake. Due to his nasty personality, there are any number of people who might want him dead, and unfortunately for Lou, she’s one of them. Robbie tries to stay out of the police investigation, but when even more of her friends are suspected of the crime, she becomes determined to help clear them.



I had no trouble starting this series in the middle. The characters were easy to get to know and the backstories that I missed didn’t hinder my progress, rather they made me want to go back and start at book one to see how things got where they are. There weren’t any spoilers to the previous mysteries, which is great for me because I never guess whodunit and always enjoy the ride all the way to the end and the big reveal.


Maddie Day is the nom de plume of mystery author Edith Maxwell, who also writes the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, the Quaker Midwife Mysteries and the Local Foods Mysteries.




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