Christmas Cookie Murder: 09/05/22

Christmas Cookie Murder by Leslie Meier is the sixth book in the Lucy Stone mystery series. It's nearly Christmas but Lucy is distracted by the murder of Tucker Whitney, a guest at her first (and probably last) attempt at hosting the annual cookie exchange.

Each book in this series seems to have the town of Tinker's Cove hyper focused on a single problem. In this volume it's the restrictions on lobster fishing which is causing a serious downturn in the local economy. Six books on and eight years since Mail Order Murder aka Mistletoe Murder. Has the mail-order company gone completely under? Wouldn't they have retooled to take internet orders by now?

So while Lucy's fictional world continues to march on in step with the time it takes her author to write, Tinker's Cove exists in a thematic bubble. This Maine village has similar problems as the Goldy Bear Culinary mystery series. The town's geography, economy, and history is there to fit the themes, rather than to grow organically with the series.

One thing this twenty-three year old mystery has in common with newer ones is the trope of the untrustworthy authority figures. As the book is so old, I missed that one piece of the mystery, though, I did manage to tie Tucker's death to the lobsters.

I'm curious to see how the series will evolve as Lucy's children age out of the series. If the books continue to happen in real time, soon the oldest children will be out of the house, if they manage to go to college. I hope this has been the case (there are twenty-eight book as of writing this review), because Lucy's late 1990s home life and married life is a serious downer and serves mostly to pad the books.

The seventh book is Turkey Day Murder (2000).

Four stars

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