A Country Store Mystery: Biscuits and Slashed Browns (Series #4) (Paperback)

Dollycas's Thoughts We arrive in South Lick just in time for the 5th Annual National Maple Syrup Festival. The cook-off will be held at Pans ‘N Pancakes and Robbie is excited about her maple flavored entry, Maple Curry Biscuits. There is also a conference on maple tree science with many professors taking part. Some of them will also be judging the cook-off. Professor Warren Connolly from Boston is one of the judges. Robbie finds he not well liked by his fellow academics. When the man is found dead at another festival event, stabbed with a chef's knife that happens to belong to Robbie's friend and her employee's father, a research biochemist disappears Robbie finds herself trying to find a missing person and a murderer. Could they both be the same person? Robbie is running her butt off quite literally in this story. One worker is searching for his dad and her assistant Danna injured herself at a volleyball tournament so she is unable to work. Visitors are pouring into town and into Pans ‘N Pancakes and most of the time Robbie is doing the cooking, the waitressing, and bussing the tables. Her plate is overflowing and she doesn't have much time to investigate anything, but she does and gets herself into some mighty stick situations too. I have enjoyed this series from the start. Ms. Day has created wonderful characters. The dialect of the area and the dialogue including some authentic expressions make these stories so much fun to read. The pacing is swift and so much happens within these pages that is very difficult to put the book down. There was a little shakeup in the police department. The new/old investigating detective is very unique. Buck is back with his overly hearty appetite to keep Robbie in the loop of the investigation as much as he can. The suspect pool isn't too deep but they all have a motive in one way or another so it wasn't an easy mystery to solve. I have to mention the setting at Pans ‘N Pancakes. I have a clear picture of it in my head, not sure how truly accurate it is, but a place that serves food like Robbie does, decked out with all kinds of old kitchen gadgets sounds like my kind of place. She is also adding rooms to the place and her first guest should be arriving in the next book. It is definitely a place I would love to visit.