Book Review: Murder on Wheels

Book: Murder on Wheels (A Tourist Trap Mystery book #6) by Lynn Cahoon

Source: Borrowed from Publisher/NetGalley for an honest review

Publication: Available now

Description:

The food truck craze has reached the charming coastal town of South Cove, California, but before Jill Gardner—owner of Coffee, Books, and More—can sample the eats, she has to shift gears and put the brakes on a killer . . .

Now that Kacey Austin has got her new gluten-free dessert truck up and running, there’s no curbing her enthusiasm—not even when someone vandalizes the vehicle and steals her recipes. But when Kacey turns up dead on the beach and Jill’s best friend Sadie becomes the prime suspect, Jill needs to step on it to serve the real killer some just desserts.




Rating: 4 stars

Review:

I think I may have found a new cozy mystery series. I really enjoyed reading this and I'm going to look into picking up the first five books.

Murder on Wheels follows South Cove, California resident Jill Gardner who seems to split her very busy time between running her store Coffee, Books and More with trying to solve the murder of Kacey Austin, an up and coming business owner. When Kacey wasn't working on her plans to open up her gluten-free food truck, she was the President of The Coastal Geocache Club which is an outdoors club where people use GPS to find hidden items out in the woods.

When Kacey unexpectedly died, the attention of the police were on her husband Dustin Austin and Jill's friend Sadie Michaels. Previously, Sadie who is a professional baker had been duped by Dustin who had wound up getting her recipes that he then had given to his wife. In Sadie's defense, she had no idea he was married (or separated) when she had fallen for him. Meanwhile, when he and his wife got back together Kacey had no idea where the recipes had come from. So, did being a slimy jerk make Dustin a killer or was Sadie after being humiliated as well as having her recipes taken the murderer? Or was there someone else that could have done it? That's what Jill was trying her best to look into even if her boyfriend South Cove Police Detective Greg King wanted her not to.

This was a fun and a well-written story. I really like the characters. I found it refreshing that this cozy mystery wasn't filled with tons of quirky characters which I've noticed has almost become the norm lately within the genre. These were just run-of-the-mill normal yet interesting characters. I also thought the personal lives of these characters were just as engaging as the mystery.

Although it does follow the usual format of a typical cozy mystery where it take a little time before the mystery solving starts, I didn't mind. Because I was enjoying the story and getting know the characters.

I thought the mystery was interesting and the story also had a bit of a food theme. But thankfully didn't include any recipes which is something I'm starting to get tired of seeing in cozy mysteries.

Murder on Wheels turned out to be an unexpected good read. I look forward to reading more from this series.