For a little town in Ohio, Providence does pretty well. There are plenty of cute little boutiques and artisan shops in the downtown, among them what is affectionately called The Cheese Shop run by Charlotte and a cousin. After taking it over from her grandparents and remodeling, Charlotte gets more than what she bargains for when a man is killed in front of her store, and her grandmother is the main suspect. And it also affects her grandmother's chance at becoming mayor again. The man's wife is running against her and a prime suspect herself, not to mention a very unpleasant person. Charlotte has to figure out what happened before her grandmother is put away.
Charlotte is an ok character. Very prone to being excitable though. She also is easily swayed which makes her not that strong of a character. Her grandmother and grandfather, however, were fabulous. There were a lot of side characters, but none I really felt a connection to. There wasn't a whole lot of description on them aside from what we were "told" rather than "shown." I guess I would have just liked to see their characters developed. Or maybe less characters with more time spent on them, I kept confusing some of them once in awhile.
The mystery was actually pretty good on this one. I wasn't able to guess who it was even though there were plenty of clues. And it was paced nicely. I think what was best was all the descriptions of cheese. I love cheese. And they thoughtfully included some recipes at the end as well. With all the talk of food though it did make me pretty hungry and of course craving cheese. Being that its a murder mystery it wasn't overly graphic though. More description was given to the cheese than the murder.
I liked it and look forward to reading more in the Cheese Shop Mystery series. If nothing else it will be good just for the recipes.
The Long Quiche Goodbye
Copyright 2010
314 pages
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