Dear Fellow Readers,

Do you use your local library very much? I will admit that there were times in my life when I didn’t. I don’t think that I appreciated everything that libraries can do for a community. When I moved eight years ago, one of the first places that I headed was the local library. They had a book group that met one time a month in the afternoon and I decided that I should try it. (By the way, I decided that for anything thing new I tried I needed to go to at least three meetings to decide if the activity was right for me. An arbitrary decision but it worked out to be a good choice.)

The first meeting that I went to was to discuss Alice Hoffman’s A Marriage of Opposites. It was a great book with lots of different things to talk about. Apparently, I was not the only one who enjoyed the book. The meeting was very well attended and there was lots of discussion. I won’t go into it now but there are comments from that discussion that I can still remember, mostly because they were so amazing. I told everyone about the things that went on in that meeting. I couldn’t wait to go back. Now, there have not been any sessions to rival that one since, but I always enjoy going. One of the other regular attendees and I have only agreed on two books in the last 3 or 4 years. And our agreement was that we felt neutral about those two books. It always makes for a good session when there are varied opinions about a book.

Today’s book is A Smoking Bun by Ellie Alexander. The book’s publication date is tomorrow. The book takes place in Ashland, Oregan, the home of Jules Capshaw, who is a baker who owns Torte, the local bakery. The town is home to Mount A, which is home to a ski resort. The book revolves around the murder of Fritz who had been annoying the ski patrol, the resort owner, and just about anyone who encountered him. He seemed to be a know-it-all who didn’t care or listen to rules. His body was discovered during the “Downhill Dummy” event, a special event that the whole town and many visitors attend. The ski resort owner was quick to point out someone she thought was the murderer and the police and ski patrol captured him.

But was he really the murderer? What was Fritz doing on the mountain? With Jules busy because her husband’s family from Spain was visiting, she didn’t think she had time to look for a killer, but she couldn’t keep away from it. Besides, when the police chief is dating your mother, you might be able to get some insights.

It seems that this is book 19 in the series of books subtitled, A Bakeshop Mystery. I had no idea. I did think when reading the book that it was not the first in the series (because so much was mentioned of things from the past.) I would never have dreamed it was the 19^th. I think it can be read without the others in the series but it was obvious there were some things from the past that I didn’t know.

Because I was given the book to give an honest review, I would pass on this book. I did finish it, so it wasn’t awful, but I found all of the descriptions long. The bakery had a lot of employees and they each did different things, and I just didn’t care that much. It didn’t add to the story. It seemed that there was a lot of extraneous information.

Having said that, I might try the first book and see if it is better. It could be that #19 was just a dog in the series. The first book is Meet Your Baker.

Thanks for reading!