Blind man’s bluff

With business going stale at Zydeco Cakes, Rita Lucero has plenty to worry about. But when the blind trumpet player Old Dog Leg Magee asks for a favor, she can’t say no. His brother Monroe disappeared forty years ago, and now someone has shown up claiming to be him. Old Dog Leg needs Rita to be his eyes—and see if it’s really his brother.

The Twisted Palms Bed and Breakfast is full of unsavory characters, Monroe included. Posing as newlyweds, Rita and her friend Gabriel check in, only to discover that Monroe’s true identity isn’t the only mystery they’ll have to solve. When another guest at the Twisted Palms turns up dead, it seems the mysterious man might also be a murderer...

Series: A Piece of Cake Mystery

Review

For fans of:  Jenn McKinlay

Business has been slow at Zydeco Cakes – so slow that owner Rita Lucero is going to have to either change her business model or start laying people off.  Unfortunately, however, she and her partner (her former mother-in-law, Miss Frankie) can’t agree on a course of action, so until one of them gives in, the situation will continue to decline.  The matter is weighing heavily on Rita’s mind, but she always makes time for her friends, so when blind jazz musician Old Dog Leg Magee shows up at Zydeco asking for a favor, she can’t say no.

Old Dog Leg’s brother, Monroe, disappeared from New Orleans 40 years ago was never heard from again – until now, that is.  It seems someone claiming to be Monroe recently showed up at The Twisted Palms, an inn across town, and sent Old Dog Leg a letter proposing that the two reconnect.  The only problem is, without his sight, Old Dog Leg has no way of telling whether this man is actually his long-lost brother, so he’s come up with a plan:  he wants Rita and her friend, bartender Gabriel Broussard, to check into the inn posing as honeymooners and do some investigating on his behalf. It’s a task that should be quickly and easily accomplished, but while they’re there, one of the other guests is murdered and maybe-Monroe goes missing, which means that if Old Dog Leg’s to get the closure he’s seeking, the pair’s going to have to drastically broaden the scope of their investigation …

Arsenic and Old Cake is the third of Jacklyn Brady’s Piece of Cake Mysteries, and it’s a fresh, fun take on the classic manor house whodunit. The set-up is a little far-fetched, but not so implausible as to detract from the story; on the contrary, it’s refreshing to see Rita step outside of her little Zydeco bubble.  The prose is smart and has a nice rhythm to it.  And while the stakes are a bit lower than I tend to like in my crime fiction and the pace occasionally flags, Brady makes up for the lack of action by putting a lot of time and effort into developing her cast.

Rita makes for a charming heroine. Yes, she can be a little slow on the uptake, and the extent of her nosiness occasionally strains credulity, but she’s loyal, compassionate, and tough as nails, and she has great chemistry with every single character with whom she shares a scene. Gabriel is a fantastic potential love interest, but also makes for an entertaining and likable character in his own right, and it’s nice to see him come out from behind the bar and get a little extra screen time. The love triangle developing between Rita, Gabriel, and hunky homicide detective Liam Sullivan makes for compelling reading and should provide ample drama for books to come.  Miss Frankie offsets her usual steel with some uncharacteristic vulnerability here, adding depth and texture to her character.  And the guests and residents of The Twisted Palm round out the cast nicely; each is fully fleshed with a unique personality and something to hide, adding complexity to the mystery and life to Brady’s tale.

Reviewed by Kat

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