Review: A Calorie-Laden Cozy with Well Fed Detectives
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 2, 2013
An elderly lady is discovered dead in her bed, and an autopsy reveals it was due to foul play. A pair of super-sized detectives, Cy Dekker and Lou Murdock, are assigned to the case and proceed to eat their way towards weeding out the correct culprit from a street full of suspects.It's never far from meal or snack time for these two detectives while tracking down clues and questioning witnesses. Somehow despite spending more time in the local diner than at the scene of the crime, they manage to sift through clues and evidence to work their way through interpreting the clues to catch the perp while either planning their next meal or wisecracking at their coworkers, neighbors, or wait staff. At first the constant snacking on Hershey almond bars and M&Ms; and the detailed menu selections were amusing, but as the book wore on, the constant rundowns of the amount of gravy or dessert each detective consumed became tedious. It was obvious the Hilltop PD had no physical fitness requirements for their star detectives.The murder mystery itself was typical of the genre with a few twists. The ending was somewhat logical as to whodunit, but there were several loose ends left hanging with the overall story. There were several suspects who had gone missing during the story without any explanation forthcoming at the end in regard to their status, if they had been found, or why and where they had gone. Although the murder had been solved, it still felt as though the reader had been shortchanged with a half-hearted and incomplete ending.Marginally recommended only as a light, quick filler read rather than as an engrossing, complex mystery to be solved.