Batter Off Dead (Country Store Mystery #10)
by Maddie Day
My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Age Category: Adult
Type of romance: MF
Blurb:
In South Lick, Indiana, fine foods and classic cookware can be found at Robbie Jordan’s Pans ’N Pancakes. Unfortunately, her country store also seems to stock up on murder . . .Robbie and her new husband Abe O’Neill are enjoying a summer evening in the park with fellow townsfolk excited for some Friday night fireworks. In attendance are senior residents from Jupiter Springs Assisted Living including Roy Bird, father to South Lick’s very own Police Lieutenant Buck Bird. Despite his blindness, Roy is a member of his group home’s knitting circle, spending quality time with some lovely ladies.
But when the lightshow ends, one of the knitters who sat with Roy is found dead, a puncture wound in her neck. The poor woman’s death echoes that of Buck’s mother and Roy’s wife—an unsolved homicide. To help find the killer, Robbie’s going to have to untangle the knotty relationships deep in the victim’s past . . .
My Review
Batter Off Dead is the tenth book already in the Country Story Mystery series by Maddie Day and this is still one of my favorite cozy mystery series. Batter Off Dead has again more of Robbie’s personal life, as well as another mystery. Robbie is now living together with her husband and she’s still running her store.
The start of the mystery hit me a bit harder than most cozies as I thought the way the murder took place felt quite gruesome with a deaf person sitting right next to the victim while she got killed. Luckily after that the focus is more on finding who did it than the way she got killed. Even so for some reason this mystery didn’t fully grasp me. It also felt that for a long time Robbie wasn’t really getting anywhere, clues are slow to come in and no suspects get ruled out till the end when the murderer is revealed. Then the end confrontation with the murder felt kinda forced with how Robbie went somewhere alone for something she hadn’t thought of before. And the only way she solved the mystery was because of that confrontation. I thought the reveal of the murderer made sense and I liked seeing it all fall on it’s place.
Despite the mystery not gripping me as much I still had a great time reading this book. I really enjoy reading about Robbie’s daily life seeing how she handles her restaurant, reading about all the food they make and seeing her interactions with friends, family, acquaintances and suspects. I like Robbie and I like the daily life aspect of these cozies. I also think Robbie handles the investigation quite smart most of the time.
To summarize: Another good installment in this cozy mystery series. While the mystery didn’t grip me as much in this book, I enjoyed reading about Robbie’s daily life, the people around her and her restaurant. The mystery started off a bit gruesome with the way the murder took place and I thought there wasn’t as much progress throughout the book for the mystery. I didn’t like how the confrontation at the end took place and how that was the only reason Robbie solved the mystery. I did like seeing how everything fell on it’s place at the end and the reveal made sense. I liked reading about Robbie and how she’s now living together with her husband, her daily life and work at the restaurant are fun to read about.
Sounds like a good murder mystery.
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It sure was a good read 🙂