Murder in Christmas River

Christmas River Cozy Series, Book 1

De: Meg Muldoon

Narrado por: Randye Kaye

Cinnamon Peters is one tough cookie.

Every year at Christmas River's annual Gingerbread Junction Competition, pie baker extraordinaire Cinnamon aims to win, taking down any competitor who gets in her way. But when she finds a dead body in the woods behind her pie shop just days before the big competition, Cinnamon realizes that there's much more to worry about than cookies, frosting, and gumdrops.

Someone's out to bring Cinnamon down. And they're playing dirty.

Only Cinnamon and a mysterious stranger who walks into her life one snowy evening can figure out the mystery.

But can they solve it before Cinnamon's chances of gingerbread competition glory crumble?

©2012 Meg Muldoon (P)2016 Tantor

One of my favorites!

Love the Christmas River series by Meg Muldoon, and was thrilled to find the audio book! Randye did an excellent performance changing voices slightly but enough to distinguish each character. Can't wait to listen to more of this series!

great narrator, good story and a dog 🙂

The narrator is exceptional, thanks to her the story comes across as quite strong. Overall I liked it, it is a cozy mystery with a lot of Christmas atmosphere. The main character is a bit over the top dramatic for my taste but at the same time she learns and gets stronger, which is a nice development. And I love stories with dogs, so I'll get the next one in the series.

Great read!

I have already read this on kindle and loved them so much I went for the audible version. The narration was done very well. The story teller got me so wrapped up I forgot I was driving :). Highly recommend!

I enjoyed the premise the characters and the book.

I enjoyed the whole book. From beginning to end it was delicious. I would enjoy more mysteries from this pie shop

Great cozy....

Clean cozy with good plot....Loved the Christmas theme and enjoyed the romance as well

Good one.

Good listen..The characters are solid. The narrator did an excellent job. I really like the theme.

Cozy murder romance.

It started out a little weird. I almost stopped. I’m glad I kept listening as it made sense. It is a good book. NO fowl words, No sex and still awesome.

A lovely story!

Romances are not really my kind of thing, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. No swearing, no explicit sex. Just a wholesome whodunnit.

Review

It was enjoyable and I didn’t see the plot of the killer coming and I loved the characters, overall great first book of a series.

Being a prime murder suspect

In Murder in Christmas River by Meg Muldoon, Cinnamon Peters has been burned by life but fights to keep going, especially by entering the annual gingerbread mansion contest at her home in Christmas River and fighting to win. Then one night in early December, she sees a scraggly Australian shepherd come to her back door and feeds him scraps, but it takes her over a week of trying to gain his trust to get him to stick around. Then late one night, she sees the dog, whom she has named Huckleberry, come toward her, with a man who is very drunk following behind. He said that he felt the dog leading him to her. Recognizing the name as Daniel, the man who broke her heart as a teenager after kissing her and then disappearing upon the murder of his brother, she is curious that he doesn't recognize her. Cinnamon gives Daniel a ride home, surprising him when she says goodbye to him by name. Then a couple nights later, Huckleberry returns, but this time Cinnamon realizes he wants her to follow him, and he leads her through the snow to find a pile of snow with a hand sticking out.

Daniel shows up for their prearranged date as Cinnamon is calling the police, taking her home since the woman is in shock. The next day he lets her know that the dead man is the longtime judge of the gingerbread house contest, a man who has been especially hard on Cinnamon, and he has been murdered. As he starts to question her further, Cinnamon wonders why he is asking such things and knows so many details about the case. He admits that he just left the police force in Fresno, California as a former lieutenant, to move back to his hometown of Christmas River, Oregon. So now he is helping the sheriff. And it soon becomes apparent that this sheriff thinks that Cinnamon committed the crime. Thus, she must try to clear her name, while at the same time working hard to win the contest and trying to rekindle a relationship with Daniel.

This book was enjoyable, but it is rather light on details. There are not many twists to the mystery plot, and I thought the solution rather weak. Probably the strongest detail of the book is the character and behavior of Huckleberry, the dog. He has a believable personality that endears him to us. The other characters in the book have less definition to them. The romance plot works fairly well, but it too seems a little thin.

I did enjoy the narration of Randye Kaye, who does a good job of helping us to relate to the book. I liked that part of the book.

Murder in Christmas River is a nice, gentle book. It is ideal for those who want to relax and not think too hard. But I wish it had more depth to it. So I give it three stars.