Search - A Brisket, a Casket (Deadly Deli, Bk 1)

1st in series

After her uncle died, newly divorced New Yorker Gwen Katz-Silver aka Nash, inherits her deceased uncles' Jewish Deli. Things start to go south for the deli when a long time customer Buster Sergeant bites the big one on stage during karaoke night. After Gwen is attacked and shoved into her walk in refigerator, business starts to come to a crawl. Enter in slimey real estate developer, Royce Sinclair and his creepy atterney, Carl Liarson, trying to buy out Gwens deli. Gwen decides to start uncovering her uncles' past to figure out how to save the deli, and herself.

While I enjoyed this book, there wasnt much character development at all. The dialect was merely tolerable. To top it off, there wasnt any actual sleuthing involved. And yet, the story grew on me and was well resolved in only 230 short pages.

I will definitely continue this series, in hopes the next one will be better.

The mystery in this book was completely predictable and almost non-existent, but I decided that I still enjoyed reading it. The main character had me chuckling several times, and I'm curious to see what the author has planned for her in future books. If she could just write an actual mystery into the story, now then we'd have a really fun book! Will watch for book two in this series to see where the storyline goes.

The book was a bit corny, though I have to admit that the mystery of "who done-it" was not predictable. Loved the inclusion of recipes, however. I'm not sure if I will bother reading any other books in the series.

New Yorker Gwen moves to Nashville when she inherits her uncle's deli. Fairly predictable mystery. OK for a quick evening read. 3 stars