Product Description

Alcohol is a no-no in the Mennonite community of Hernia, Pennsylvania, but the events bubbling up in town are enough to make everyone feel a little tipsy. A couple of unprincipled outsiders have a plan to start a vineyard and open a winery. So everyone's a suspect when the manager of the vineyard is found entombed in cement..

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #654972 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-02
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In Myer's disappointing 14th mystery to star Mennonite hotelier Magdalena Yoder (after 2005's Assault and Pepper), Felicia Bacchustelli, a long-legged glamour-puss, arrives in Hernia, Pa., and announces plans to open a spa that will put Magdalena's PennDutch Inn out of business. When Felicia gets herself murdered, Magdalena is suspect "numero uno"—so to save her own hide and satisfy her endless curiosity, our heroine sets out to finger the real killer. Magdalena has never seemed more annoying, or her penchant for attracting sexy bachelors never more perplexing. The recipes shoehorned between chapters are superfluous. And when the real killer confesses, the solution seems improbable rather than surprising. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Carolyn Hart
A delicious treat.

Review
A delicious treat. (Carolyn Hart)

Bubbling over with mystery. (Dorothy Cannell)

Rollickingn suspense. (Washington Post)

Customer Reviews

murder, humor and sass
Tamar Myers is a great writer. Her ability to combine the humor of every day life with murder is a gift. Okay, murder isn't funny, but you know what I mean. She makes you think, laugh, and wonder with just one sentence. She is one writer who I will laugh out loud while reading. If you're looking for a cozy mystery, this one is it. You'll learn a little something too. :-)

Too much background information
I believe I have read all of the Pennsylvania Dutch mysteries and have been a big fan, but this one fell very flat. There was entirely too much background information included/required. If anyone had picked this up and tried to read it without having read the other mysteries first, I doubt it would have made any sense. Myers explains the whole background of each character, such as Melvin Stoltzfus, who isn't even a character in this book, but whose background is included. It's very cumbersome and difficult to follow the present story.

I think there comes a time when an author needs to just let go of a character's background and let the present circumstances speak for themselves. Now's the time!!

Mystery lite!
Magdalena Yoder is back with the verve and over-the-top humor which characterize this series. This time, one of the citizens of Hernia, Pennsylvania, has sold his land to a group who plan to build a winery called Grape Expectations. Of course this does not go over well in this ultra-conservative Amish community, and the outraged citizens look for ways of heading off this potential catastrophe. Someone, however, carries the anger too far when one of the developers of the winery is killed. For some obscure reason, the local sheriff decides that Magdalena is her #1 suspect. As usual, the book is full of madcap jokes, and several past indiscretions come to life which seem at odds with the supposed clean-living Mennonite and Amish citizens of Hernia. The book is mildly amusing, but the oft-used formula in this series may be wearing a little thin.