An Eggnog to Die For

Cape Cod Foodie Mystery #2

By Amy Pershing

ISBN#9780593199169

www.amypershingauthor.com

Brought to you by OBS Reviewer Daniele

Synopsis:

It’s Santa Claus, she says tonelessly. Santa Claus is dead.

Food writer Sam Barnes wants a lot of things: a quiet Christmas at home with her dog and the town’s handsome harbormaster, to never be in a viral video again, and to stop finding dead bodies. Unfortunately for Sam, her parents are coming to visit, she’s often around cameras for work, and she just found the town Santa dead in the storage room of the cocktail bar she was profiling.

Although she was only interviewing the owners of the Ginger Jar in hopes of getting the recipe for their Coquito Eggnog cocktail for the friends and family Christmas Eve dinner she’s hosting, Sam quickly finds herself taking on the role of investigator once again. She needs to find out who slayed this Santa–but with holiday stress already building, will Sam be able to pull off a perfect feast and nab a killer?  (Goodreads)

Review:

An Eggnog to Die For, the second Cape Code Foodie Mystery, is full of holiday spirit, food, and murder.  It is entertaining and charming from start to finish.

Former chef Sam is now a food writer in the midst of Christmas prep, knocking out a work assignment about holiday cocktails at The Ginger Jar, when she stumbles across the body of local politician and businessman in the office of the local bar and restaurant.  Caleb Mayo was a town selectman and on the school board who seemed to relish doing “the right thing” which really meant being pompous and holier-than-thou, wielding his power to ruin some residents’ lives.  This provides lots of fodder for suspects and motives, including the owners of The Ginger Jar.  Since Sam found the body, she feels compelled to find out what happened to Caleb.

I like Sam.  She is intuitive, intelligent, and quite perceptive, often noticing things that others miss.  She does tend to jump into situations that are dangerous, but that is common with many amateur cozy sleuths.  Recurring characters from the first book in the series are present and accounted for, and I enjoyed seeing these folks again.  Sam’s parents’ arrival to spend the holiday in their hometown gives readers the opportunity to see where Sam comes from, their similarities and differences (Sam consistently refers to them as her ‘rents which drives me nuts).  There is plenty of talk of food…Feast of Five Fishes – yum…with some recipes included in the back of the book.

The mystery of Caleb’s murder is well plotted and finely executed.  Caleb was a nasty guy, and I had a hard time feeling bad about his demise.  He knows so many people’s secrets that it is no surprise that there are gobs of suspects to weed through.  Author Amy Pershing drops ample clues and red herrings that kept me vacillating until Sam worked it out.  I thought I had cracked the case early on which caused me to gloss over the most significant identifying clue.  I love it when I do not figure it all out.

An Eggnog to Die For is a lighthearted, Christmas themed cozy with an interesting puzzle to work through.  Recommended to any cozy reader any time of year.