Fondue or Die

Cheese Shop Mystery #5

By Korina Moss

ISBN:  9781250893918 

Website: korinamossauthor.com

Brought to you by OBS reviewer Andra                   

Summary:

The lazy, hazy, dairy days of summer are coming to a close in the Sonoma Valley. . . and so is someone’s life.

The small town of Yarrow Glen’s neighbor, Lockwood, hosts an annual Labor Day weekend bash: Dairy Days. And Willa Bauer and her cheese shop, Curds & Whey, refuse to miss out on the fun. Willa is thrilled to celebrate her favorite thing—she is a cheesemonger after all—and this festival goes all out: butter sculptures, goat races, cheese wheel relays, even a Miss Dairy pageant. Too bad the pageant runner, Nadine, is treating Dairy Days prep like it’s fondue or die and is putting everyone around her on edge. When Willa finds Nadine’s dead body under years’ worth of ceramic milk jugs, the police aren’t sure whether the death was an accident. But fingers are pointing at Willa’s employee, Mrs. Schultz, who steps in to help the pageant after Nadine’s death. Someone wanted Nadine out of the whey, and Willa is going to find out who. (Goodreads)

Review:

Fondue or Die by Korina Moss may be the fifth book in the Cheese Shop Mystery series but it is the first book that I have read by this author. One may ask why I gave a low rating…maybe the disconnect is that I started at book 5 in this series, thus not having a history with the characters? Additionally – I found that the pace was a bit slow for my taste. When time permits, I may go back and start the series from the beginning but until then…here is my review.

Willa Bauer is the owner of Curds & Whey, a locale cheese shop. She and her crew are excited to have a booth at Dairy Days – an annual Labour Day weekend bash. Being a first time vendor at this annual event is exciting for the crew. And Willa is even a judge for the Miss Dairy pageant. Well, excited until Nadine, the pageant director turns up dead. As this death has occurred at the beginning of the weekend festival, the local police wish to keep this quiet, not necessary to upset the local community! This however, does not stop Willa and her crew from quietly investigating for a possible suspect or two J

Loved the scene where Heath went undercover. His reticence was palpable and kind of cute. Going undercover should have been no problem for him but when he said the following – I burst out chuckling as the imagery was cute as well as funny:

               “You mean in all your years as a police detective, you’ve never gone undercover?”

               “Not as Woody from Toy Story,” he said dryly.

Through the story, this reader learned of the history between Willa and Heath. These two originally had a budding relationship but when Heath asked her to stop looking into it – Willa would not step away from the previous case, putting her and their budding relationship in danger. This ended their relationship four months previously. With a bit of trepidation, I might add, maybe there is still a chance? It seemed like it in this storyline they worked well together. But time and another book in the series will probably shed light on this.

The sleuthing at times was slow (or at least that is the impression I got) but in the end, everyone worked together in piecing together the events that lead to murder and the culprit. I found the name the group named themselves quaint, if not a bit predictable given they all work for a cheese store – “Team Cheese”. I did have an inkling of who the culprit might have been, but not sure until the end, which is good as this is how I like my cozy mysteries!

I would also like to say that I loved the cover art! Makes me want to go on a fondue picnic, Yum!!!