Tag: juliabuckley

Book Review: Pudding Up With Murder

~ tahenryauthoress ~ Leave a comment

Pudding Up with Murder is also a third book in a series, Julia Buckley’s Undercover Dish Series. I’ve read the first two and found them enjoyable. I think I was initially drawn to this series because I once considered opening a business doing exactly what Lilah does, secretly catering for people who pass it off as their own. LOL

Basic Summary (Courtesy of Goodreads):

Secret chef Lilah Drake has a killer casserole to deal with in the latest Undercover Dish mystery from the author of Cheddar Off Dead….

Customers trust Lilah Drake to keep her mouthwatering meals under wraps, but when a millionaire meets his untimely end, some sinister secrets become the main course. . . .

Spring is right around the corner, and with the warmer temperatures come plenty of food requests from Lilah Drake’s covered-dish clients. Lilah pulls out all the stops with a sweet new casserole for the birthday party of Marcus Cantwell, a wealthy curmudgeon who has some angry ex-wives and more than a few enemies.

When he’s found facedown in Lilah’s casserole, it’s anyone’s guess as to who might have wanted the old man dead. A possible new heir to Marcus’s fortune adds some unexpected spice to the investigation, but Lilah fears that the old adage is true, and “the proof is in the pudding.”

My thoughts:

Reading that description above, I wonder who wrote it. There are no angry ex-wives in the book. They all get along. In fact, they all come to the birthday party with their new spouses. Whatever….moving on.

There is something so comforting about a well written cozy. Yes, someone has died. But so often they are icky people who kind of, if not deserve it, deserve some sort of punishment. This guy, well he’s dead and people have conflicting opinions about whether he deserved it or not.
The series has taken an interesting turn in book 3. Often in a cozy the police are against the amateur detective working the case, no matter how hard she might be trying to stay out of things. Finally in book 3 of the series, the cops actually admit the info the amateur garners is helpful and ask her to chat people up. It was refreshing.
Julia Buckley writes a fun cozy. She does. I’ve said before and I’ll say again, the main character is fun and has interesting family and friends. She’s chasing her own dream quietly and enjoying the process. All her speed bumps seem to come in the form of dead bodies but she handles that too.
For happy, “I wanna check out” entertainment, Buckley’s Undercover Dish Mysteries does the trick.