Blueberry Muffin Murder (Paperback)

All the residents of little Lake Eden, Minnesota, are pitching in to help prepare for a spectacular annual celebration event: The Winter Carnival. Hannah is especially excited about the Winter Carnival because she has been chosen by the Lake Eden residents the honor of baking the enormous and delicious Winter Carnival Cake, which everyone will feast upon once the Prince and Princess of Winter are elected.

But then Hannah's mood changes from intense happiness to intense anger, when Connie McIntyre, otherwise known as Connie Mac, "America's Cooking Sweetheart," is instead picked to bake the Winter Carnival Cake. Connie Mac is well-known amongst everyone for her fancy yet expensive cooking appliances boutiques, best-selling cookbooks, and sky-high-rated cable TV show, "Cooking with Connie Mac." Hannah's angry about the whole Connie Mac ordeal, because she thinks that if Connie Mac bakes the cake, then it will be just like the rest of the sugary delicacies she makes on her shows---pretty and delicate, but likely to leave a dull taste in your mouth.

And as it turns out, no one else who personally knows Connie Mac likes her, either. Connie Mac is rude, pushy, self-absorbed, materialistic, and downright domineering to everyone in her presence. She coerces or sweet-talks people to get what she wants, and what she wants is always something hard to get. Even worse, Hannah's hatred for Connie Mac deepens when Connie Mac forces Hannah to let her use The Cookie Jar to bake the Winter Carnival Cake.

When Hannah returns back to The Cookie Jar to oversee how Connie Mac is doing on baking the Winter Carnival Cake, she makes quite a bitter and shocking discovery. Hannah first smells the acrid scent of burning cake---the Winter Carnival Cake! She rushes inside, and opens the oven doors, only ot discover the once magnificent cake is now a mass of black dust. But the worst is still to come... In Hannah's walk-in pantry, she finds Connie Mac dead, banged in the head with a wooden baseball bat, with one of Hannah's famous Blue Blueberry Muffins clutched in her hand.

Though Detective Mike Kingston once again pleads with Hannah to stay out of Connie Mac's murder mystery crime investigation, Hannah feels a nerve in the back of her mind, tugging her to investigate the murder. Especially since one of her old childhood friends, now working for Connie Mac, has mysteriously disappeared around the same time Connie Mac was murdered.

Even considering the fact that Blueberry Muffin Murder is not one of my favorites in Joanne Fluke's Hannah Swensen mystery series, it is still very good, and the wacky characters, comical subplots, delicious written-in recipes, and much, much more make this cozy culinary mystery even better. Joanne Fluke is definitely not a "fluke" when it comes to writing good cozy mysteries.

Highly recommended!

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I personally love the dialogue and the characters. Hannah Swensen doesn't seem to me to "order any of the other characters around" and in fact it seems as though she often has to walk a fine line between dodging her mother and her sister. I do think that the men in her life and how THEY feel could be a little more developed, but this is a really cute series.

In "Blueberry Muffin Murder," Connie Mac (who HAD to be based on a "Martha Stewart" type) comes into town and the fun begins.
I do think that this series would probably appeal more to women than to most "career driven macho men." Although, anyone who likes to cook would probably really like this series as well.

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