Crime Rib: 04/10/25

Crime Rib by Leslie Budewitz and Rebecca Mitchell (Narrator) (2014) is the second book in the Food Lovers' Village mystery series. Food Preneurs is filming in Jewel Bay, Montana but the producer and the host are murdered within days of each other.

Although I struggled with the first book, Death Al Dente (2013), I found this volume to be better grounded in its fictional Montana town. Erin Murphy feels like a more well rounded character. She's had time to resettle in her home town. There's some amusing lamp-shading about weaker plot points from the first book by returning side characters.

This volume's mystery was fairly easy to solve but ultimately a satisfying puzzle. It suffers from being yet another mystery set during a reality TV show involving a cooking contest. There are so many of this type of mystery that they're hard to avoid.

The other improvement, at least for my enjoyment, was the choice to switch to the audiobook version. I tend to skim books even when I'm enjoying them, and sometimes that hinders my experience with mysteries. Rebecca Mitchell does a good job of bringing the characters to life and to keep me engaged and interested for the duration.

The next book in the series is Butter of Dead (2015).

Four stars

Comments (0)