The Crepes of Wrath

Author: Tamar Myers
Genre: Light Mystery
Pages: 255
First Published: 2001
Series: 9th book in the Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery with Recipes series
Series Order: Look here
First Line: "I woke to find a woman's face pressed against the pane of my bedroom window."

Synopsis: Hernia, Pennsylvania is a rural area with a large population of Mennonite and Amish people. Magdalena Yoder is a Mennonite woman who owns a very successful bed and breakfast in the small town. While she is a great business woman she is also quite adept at solving murders. When Lizzie Mast, known as the world's worst cook by her neighbours, dies from a bad batch of crepes most people figure her cooking killed her. Magdelena is not so sure and is happy when her brother-in-law, the inept sheriff, deputizes her and asks her to look into it.

My Thoughts: This is my first book by Tamar Myers and I enjoyed it. Don't expect a deep, dark mystery. It's a very light read and although it is entertaining many of the things that occur seem fairly implausible to this reader.

One of my favourite things about this book is the writing. Some of the innuendos, puns and double entendres literally made me laugh out loud because I just wasn't expecting them when the book was based around a middle-aged Mennonite woman. I realize that it was probably written for the shock factor and, if so, Myers definitely took me off guard!

For example: "A good Magdalena would have spent the time wisely, perhaps reading the Bible. It was, after all, Sunday afternoon. Instead, I sat on my chair and twiddled my thumbs. When I got bored with that, I reached down my dress to play with my pussy." After I closed my gapping mouth and put the eyes back in my head I proceeded to read the first sentence of the next paragraph. It's there that Myers makes it clear what her original meaning is "My pussy is a purebread chocolate point Siamese named Little Freni." Ohhhhhh. Yes, that's what I thought (total lie - my mind was in the gutter). Little Freni likes to nap inside one of Magdalena's overly large bra cups. Gotcha! Now, I ask you ... how likely is it that a flat chested Mennonite woman walks around with a DD bra with a kitten napping in one cup? Probably not all that common even among the general population but funny nonetheless.

Magdalena is a good main character who is strong and fiesty. She even provides her inn guests with an "authentic Amish experience" while staying at the inn. For an added cost they can clean their own rooms, make her dinner and even do the laundry. The city folks eat it up! Believable? Well, no ... but still amusing.

While the mystery itself was pretty thin and the resolution of the mystery kind of blaw it was still a decent read mainly due to Magdalena and the cast of quirky secondary characters.

My Rating: 3.5/5 stars