Cozy Mystery OPEN FOR MURDER
January 25, 2021

Book Review

Killer Comfort Food

Lynn Cahoon

reviewed by Leslie Chatman

Family is everything; and Angie Turner is working to save her homestead and to help save the bonds of family and safety in the latest installment in the Farm-to-Fork Mystery series.

When Angie Turner returned to Idaho to open The County Seat and to live in her grandmother’s home, she never thought that she might lose her home to a soybean processing plant developer trying to buy her land. As information begins to surface about the missing wife of the lawyer representing the developer, Angie learns the hidden secret of a friend and that the safety of one of her staff members is being threatened. Everything is leaving Angie torn, having to make decisions she never before thought she would have to make.

Returning to River Vista is always exciting. The townspeople and the staff at The County Seat are fun to read about. The main characters and secondary characters have dimension and the writing is solidly engaging. There are always great points of levity and seriousness in this series that make it easy for the reader to connect with the characters and their struggles on a deeper level.

Aside from amateur sleuthing, the element of budding or complicated love is a big part of the cozy mystery genre. I enjoy when authors allow this part of the lives of their characters to grow and develop at a reasonable pace. Sometimes that pace is rather slow, but it should never become stale for the reader.

It appears that Lynn Cahoon is very tame with the relationship development of Angie and Ian, but not so much with the relationship between Felicia and Estebe. I really hope that future installments show a deepening in the relationship between Angie and Ian. I am eager to see where this goes. I want it to get messy, and to show some relatable conflict. I would even be interested in seeing Ian get a little competition from another man, this always leads to some exciting drama and development between love interests.

Killer Comfort Food, the fifth book in the Farm-to-Fork Mystery series, continues to build on the wonderfully interesting characters of River Vista. The humor is delightful and the plot twist is exciting. I am truly a fan of this series and its characters.

That said, the title and the book are a little disconnected for me as there was no actual murder and I do not understand the mention of comfort food in the title.

This book is a mystery, inside of a mystery, inside of a mystery—there are many layers involved. If you are new to the Farm-to-Fork Mystery series, it may be a challenge to jump into this installment as your first read. Consider starting this series from the beginning. There will be greater context as to how some of the characters have arrived where they are in this book, and you will not be disappointed.

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