Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth: 10/29/24

Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth by Tamar Myers and Caroline Miller (Narrator) (1993) is the first of the Pennsylvania Dutch mystery series. Magdalena Yoder runs the PennDutch Inn with her sister and their current set of guests are trying everyone's patience. And that was before the bodies.

Unfortunately this first book starts off with a plot device that I hate with a fiery passion: starting with the climax, thus forcing the majority of the plot be an extended flashback. To make things worse, as this is the introduction to a long running series, Magdalena is compelled to explain every nuance of her Mennonite life.

The opening lines of the book are Magdalena waxing on about the difference between a body and a corpse and the fact that this particular corpse is wrapped in her mother's Dresden Plate Quilt. The entire plot of the book is essentially laid bare in this first scene, including the murderer's identity, but all that gets buried in the tedium of introductions and explanations.

Every character Magdalena interacts with has to be introduced and expounded upon. She either likes them or doesn't and of course she has to contextualize every person against her own beliefs and what her mother would have believed if she were still alive. A good seventy to eighty percent of this book could be trimmed away if Magdalena just kept her thoughts to herself.

The second book in the series is Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Crime (1995). If I continue with this series I will switch to ebooks as I can't imagine sitting through another audiobook.

Two stars

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