Murder Most Fowl
A Local Foods Mystery #4
Edith Maxwell
Kensington Books, June 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4967-0025-4
It’s spring in Westbury, Massachusetts. Organic farmer Cam Flaherty is busy tilling and planting and raising baby chicks when her neighbor, Wayne Laitinen is found dead. It soon develops that he’s been murdered. The question is why. He’s always seemed a pleasant hardworking man, generous with good advice for his fellow farmers. Could it be a wealthy neighbor wanted to buy some of his land to pasture her daughter’s horse, and Wayne said no, he didn’t want to sell? Or was it the group of animal rights activists who vandalized his farm? Or even his wife because money (the lack thereof) problems have derailed their marriage?
Cam, who is a concerned neighbor, discovers a vital piece of evidence, which she promptly⏤and correctly⏤turns over to the police. Helpful to her police detective boyfriend, but it will take Cam, who in the final denouement ends up shot and wounded, plus the whole department to bring the murderer to light.
I liked the premise of this story. I liked Cam and her boyfriend Pete Pappas. They seemed to work well together without getting in each other’s way. Rare, as quite often the larger part of tension in a cozy seems to be between the main character and her policeman boyfriend.
The writing is competent, the plotting tight and fast moving. The animals in the story serve a purpose besides just being there. The book is an enjoyable read with which to while away an evening.
Reviewed by Carol Crigger, July 2016.
Author of Three Seconds to Thunder and Four Furlongs.
Buried Under Books 