Review

For fans of:  Mary Daheim

For the past five years, all of Dani Greene's energy has been focused on upping the profile of her family's maple syrup company, Greener Pastures. She's modernized the equipment, launched a website, and is even working toward earning organic certification, so you can imagine her dismay when the thing that finally gets everybody buzzing about their product isn't its quality – it's the fact that a bottle was used to poison Alanza Speedwell at the town's annual pancake-eating contest.  Dani's positive the syrup was fine when her family dropped it off the night before the competition, but how can she convince the police – and more importantly, the syrup-buying public – of that fact? Bad news travels quickly, so Dani needs to act now lest Greener Pastures' sterling reputation sustain permanent damage. Can Dani catch the killer in time to save the day, or will her half-decade of hard work prove to have simply been a waste of time?

Drizzled with Death is the first in Jessie Crockett's new Sugar Grove Mystery series, and it's a bit of an uneven read. Crockett’s heroine Dani is quite likable – a nice combination of wit, pluck, and self-effacing charm, but practically every other cast member reads like a caricature. Knowlton, the hygienically-challenged taxidermist who’s obsessed with Dani and her married sister Celadon, is almost too creepy to exist outside of police custody. Dani’s ex-boyfriend Mitch is an officious prick cop with so few redeeming qualities that it strains credulity to think the series protagonist ever could have dated him. And while I’m sure Crockett thought it would be hilarious to name every single member of the Greene family after a shade of green, it’s a gag so ridiculous as to be distracting.

Crockett’s prose has good flow, but occasionally borders on purple and overwrought. The storyline that’s supposed to be the book’s B-story – that a cargo-load of exotic animals has gotten loose and is terrorizing the town – is entertaining and helps create tension, but frequently overshadows the central plot. The stakes are (at least in theory) relatively high, but Crockett doesn’t do enough to capitalize on them, and as a result, there’s no real sense of urgency to Dani’s investigation. This drags down the pace and robs the denouement of drama, the end result being a book that’s relatively engaging, but doesn’t quite live up to its potential.