Killer Jam

Dewberry Farm Mysteries, Book 1

By: Karen MacInerney

Narrated by: Teri Clark Linden

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

When Houston reporter Lucy Resnick cashes in her retirement to buy her grandmother's farm in Buttercup, Texas, she's looking forward to a simple life as a homesteader. But Lucy has barely finished putting up her first batch of Killer Dewberry Jam when an oil exploration truck rolls up to the farm and announces plans to replace her broccoli patch with an oil derrick. Two days later, Nettie Kocurek, the woman who ordered the drilling, turns up dead at the Founders' Day Festival with a bratwurst skewer through her heart and one of Lucy's jam jars beside her...and the sheriff fingers Lucy as the prime suspect.

Horrified, Lucy begins to talk to Nettie's neighbors, but the more she gets to know the townspeople, the more she realizes she's not the only one who had a beef with Nettie. Can she clear her name, or will her dream life turn into a nightmare?

©2015 Karen MacInerney (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

killer jam

his book was exciting from beginning to end worth the hours of listening. The people are caring they will help each other.

An interesting mystery

I was hooked right from the start of this book. The narrator was ok. Her ability to give each character their own identity was a little lacking but overall she was smooth and easy to listen to. My suspicion about the culprits was dead on almost from the beginning. I experienced some sadness as some scenes unfolded and anger at others. Overall this was a really great story and a book well worth crawling into. Wish I could listen to the next in this series but it is not available on kindle unlimited or kindle prime.

So torn...

I’m so torn with this book. On one hand, it’s a nice story about a woman starting over with a new way of life and all the shenanigans that come about. I enjoyed the farm story, the cow and dog, the recipes, and even a little of the supernatural aspects of it. On the other hand, the murder mystery is so unbelievable, it’s laughable. Even here in Texas, we have due process. A prominent citizen was murdered in a very public place and not any kind of investigation was to be had. The sheriff, who was a relative, set his sights on one person and that was that with no evidence or anything to back up his beliefs. The whole book was her believing she was going to prison was honestly so frustrating. I kept hoping it would go back to her life and the people of the town, that I would groan when anything with the murder mystery came up. If you can suspend belief and forget about any mystery you’ve ever read, then you can get through this book.

Strong but Flat

I liked the way Lucy and her friend Quinn were portrayed as smart, strong and resourceful women in the thirties. Unfortunately, the rest of the Buttercup, Texas residents seemed rather flat, when I was hoping for warm, eccentric and funny.

The mystery was pretty well constructed, the descriptions of "homesteading" were interesting, and there was very little swearing or sexual content. The only graphic violence occurred in scenes when Quinn and Lucy had to protect themselves from violent men.

I'm glad the author choose to make Quinn's abusive ex-husband character realistic, rather than romantic, and not glamourizing domestic abuse. In far too many recent romances, the man who beats, rapes and tortures women is touted as the hero.

Nice Distraction

Killer Jam is a cute little mystery book. Slow and easy makes it a good distraction from everyday chaos

a great cozy

This was a fun homesteading cozy mystery. I would read more in this series. The audiobook was well done.

Excellent cozy mystery!!

I listened to this cozy on a whim and was unexpectedly blown away. A great plot and an amazing story with colourful, country characters that made me chuckle. Definitely one of my favourite cozies.

Great New Series

This was an enjoyable cozy mystery with well plotted and realistic characters and an interesting story line. I look forward to reading the next book in this series.

Performance the biggest issue

Would you try another book from Karen MacInerney and/or Teri Clark Linden?

I would try another book from Karen Macinerney.

Would you be willing to try another one of Teri Clark Linden’s performances?

I might, but to see if this performance was typical.

Was Killer Jam worth the listening time?

This was simply too long - much story repetition and redundancy. It dragged. The story was fun and compelling and the characters were mostly interesting. A little too much forced coincidence happening to allow the mystery to be solved,

Any additional comments?

The reader has a couple of annoying habits that made the listening difficult. For one, whenever the sentence ended with 'I, he or she said,' the read was read the sentence, then pause and "she said." or "I said." That pause was incredibly annoying.
The other, bigger, annoyance was the reader's use of different voices. This is normally not a problem, but she made many of the adult women sound like 6 year old girls. I wanted to scream, listening to this. If they weren't little girl voices, they were husky voiced cowgirls.
The reader's voice is pleasant but the voice acting was unnecessary for the story and terribly distracting.

Killed Jam

Cute old style story good for bedtime reading when you want to GO to sleep after.