Mysteries On The Delightful Line

Hands down one of my favorite reads of 2020. I can’t tell you how much I needed The Great British Bake Off and Sugar Rush Christmas to stream on Netflix at the end of this year, so imagine my delight to learn that the main character of this book, Zoe Washington (thanks title!), is determined to get on a baking competition show.

The summer before 7th grade, Zoe Washington sets her sites on wanting to apply for a baking contest competition. She loves to bake, is self assured, curious, and currently her best friend is away for the summer and she’s in a fight with her other best friend. Her parents decide that before letting her apply she’ll have to prove herself, so they get her an internship at a bakeshop. She’s ready to work, even if the bakeshop is more inclined to treat her like a child and only let her fold boxes.

Okay, “but what is the mystery?” you’re surely shouting at me, and I’m getting there. Zoe’s dad married her mother when she was four, her bio dad, Marcus, is in prison for murdering a woman–which she’s always known. What she didn’t know was that Marcus still says he’s innocent and that his lawyer never found the witness that he says proves he was somewhere else. Zoe doesn’t know what to believe as she reads Marcus’ letters, hidden from her parents. But, to find out whether he’s telling the truth or lying, she decides she’s going to get the information needed to get an organization to look at his case.

This is a wonderful book in so many ways and a reminder that rather than aging out of reading categories we should just be adding new reading ages to the ones we already read. And for the biggest bonus ever: the audiobook is narrated by Bahni Turpin who is one of my all time favorite narrators: American Spy; The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks; Dread Nation; The Gone Dead–I could just keep listing so many books she’s fantastically narrated!

Think Jessica Fletcher but English and in a retirement community–must be over 65– with a group of elderly people who meet weekly to discuss true crime and the unsolved murder cases the local police haven’t been able to solve. Of course, they soon find themselves on a too-close-to-home case when a brash developer with an unwanted plan is murdered. Clearly they’ll figure this out!

This walked the line between cozy and not, which, to me, is part of why I think it’ll have mass appeal for many types of crime readers. It’s funny–let’s pretend to be a nun and see what information we get!–and rotates points of view, giving you many different voices and personal lives, including a detective not so much up for this group’s hijinks.

If you’re looking for a fun murder mystery that also has a bit of weight of emotion to curl up with this winter you’ll certainly be pleased with this one.

(TW suicides, details, letter read/ mentions past sexual assault with details)