In this 21st book in the comical 'Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery' series, amateur sleuth Magdalena Yoder - a Mennonite woman who eschews things like television, movies, and dancing - is accused of murder. The book can be read as a standalone.
*****
Though Magdalena Yoder is a strict Mennonite, she's married to a handsome Jewish doctor called Gabe Rosen (aka "The Babester"). Magdalena has an adopted 14-year-old daughter named Alison; a baby boy named Jacob; was elected mayor of the town of Hernia, Pennsylvania; is a clever businesswoman; and owns the profitable PennDutch Inn B&B.
Magdalena is also the co-owner, with Hortense Hemphopple, of a defunct restaurant called The Sausage Barn, acquired as reparations for an attempted murder. Now 19-year-old Hortense wants to re-open the eatery to fund her college education, and she asks Magdalena to help. Magdalena agrees and decides the new place will be an Amish-Chinese fusion restaurant called 'Amish Sensations.'
The restaurant fuels the conflict between Magdalena and her insufferable mother-in-law Ida Rosen, who's attached to her son with steel apron strings. To be near Gabe, Ida set up the 'Convent of No Hope' across from the PennDutch Inn, and made herself Mother Superior to the 'Sisters of Perpetual Apathy', who wear drab robes, have no religious beliefs, and do nothing.
Magdalena and Ida frequently exchange sarcastic repartee, which is part of the fun of the story. For instance, when Ida hears about Asian Sensations she sees an opportunity for the Sisters of Perpetual Apathy, and approaches her daughter-in-law.
Ida: "You vill be needing vaitresses, yah?"
Magdalena: "Yes, but I need classy waitresses, not ones who dress like thirteenth-century monks."
Ida: "Vas dat an insult?"
Magdalena: "No. It was only an objective description of the schmatta that you're wearing."
Ida (to Gabe): "Oy. So new she speaks Yiddish already. I thought she was a shikse, Gabeleh."
In any case, Asian Sensations opens and the entrees are awful, but the desserts are a big hit.
After Asian Sensations gets going, the PennDutch Inn hosts a couple of high profile guests. A conservative magazine called 'The Woman's Place' plans to print an article about Magdalena's B&B, and publisher Gordon Gaiters and his assistant Sarah Conway arrive to interview the innkeeper. Unfortunately, the guests turn out to be snide and condescending, and Magdalena threatens to kill them. Soon afterwards Conway is dead, poisoned by a luscious dessert from Asian Sensations.
The sheriff arrests Magdalena for murder, and the innkeeper - who gets bail from a friendly judge - sets out to prove her innocence.
Though the book is ostensibly a mystery, the detective part of the book takes a back seat to Magdalena's interactions with her family, friends, employees, and the ghost of her granny. These encounters generate a lot of amusing comments about people's appearances, Mennonite culture, what is and isn't a sin, Magdalena's armor-like Christian underwear, etc.
There are also innumerable barbed comments, puns, quips, double entendres, malapropisms, and funny names - like Officer Twaddlebottom and Sissy Sue Sissleswitzer. This kind of thing is fun, but there's too much of it, and too little actual story.
Still, I like Tamar Myer's deft hand with language and her hilarious depiction of an amusement park called Armageddonland. The theme park will sport terrifying passages from the Book of Revelation, and holograms - like horse-sized locusts with giant scorpion tails - that will give you nightmares unless you're saved. Moreover, you get to slay demons, watch sinners die by the tens of thousands, and go on rides over a lake of fire. So that's original!! 😊
This isn't best book in the series, but it's good for a few laughs.
For those who like to bake, the book contains a recipe for 'Death by Chocolate Torte.'
Rating: 3 stars
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