When bestselling novelist Ramat Sreym falls face-down dead into Magdalena Yoder's prize-winning apple pie during the village of Hernia's 110th Annual Festival of Pies, there is no shortage of suspects in the subsequent murder investigation. But who was enraged enough by the acid-penned writer to want to poison her? Magdalena determines to find out.
Tamar Myers was born and raised in the Belgian Congo (now just the Congo). Her parents were missionaries to a tribe which, at that time, were known as headhunters and used human skulls for drinking cups. Hers was the first white family ever to peacefully coexist with the tribe, and Tamar grew up fluent in the local trade language. Because of her pale blue eyes, Tamar’s nickname was Ugly Eyes.
Tamar grew up eating elephant, hippopotamus and even monkey. She attended a boarding school that was two days away by truck, and sometimes it was necessary to wade through crocodile infested waters to reach it. Other dangers she encountered as a child were cobras, deadly green mambas, and the voracious armies of driver ants that ate every animal (and human) that didn’t get out of their way.
In 1960 the Congo, which had been a Belgian colony, became an independent nation. There followed a period of retribution (for heinous crimes committed against the Congolese by the Belgians) in which many Whites were killed. Tamar and her family fled the Congo, but returned a year later. By then a number of civil wars were raging, and the family’s residence was often in the line of fire. In 1964, after living through three years of war, the family returned to the United States permanently.
Tamar was sixteen when her family settled in America, and she immediately underwent severe culture shock. She didn’t know how to dial a telephone, cross a street at a stoplight, or use a vending machine. She lucked out, however, by meeting her husband, Jeffrey, on her first day in an American high school. They literally bumped heads while he was leaving, and she entering, the Civics classroom.
Tamar now calls Charlotte, NC home. She lives with her husband, plus a Basenji dog named Pagan, a Bengal cat named Nkashama, and an orange tabby rescue cat named Dumpster Boy. She and her husband are of the Jewish faith, the animals are not.
Tamar enjoys gardening (she is a Master Gardner), bonsai, travel, painting and, of course, reading. She loves Thai and Indian food, and antique jewelry. She plans to visit Machu Pichu in the near future.
As a long time reader of both this series and the author's Den of Antiquity series, I am beyond disappointed in this book. There is virtually no plot whatsoever. The characters are flat and beyond annoying. Basically, it seems the author has brought forth every pun, quip, and sarcastic comment ever used in the series and thrown them in this book to be repeated ad nauseam. On top of that, she seems to have taken every criticism or critique ever given to her by a reader or editor and made passive aggressive comments concerning them. This work simply comes off as a self-serving, lazy attempt that thumbs its nose at the readers. This is by far the worst book I've read this year, possibly longer.
This series has always been an entertaining and enjoyable one, but this novel is not nearly as good as some of the previous tales. I know there is a plot in there somewhere, but sometimes you can’t find it for all the alliterative dialogue. Some of it was witty, but more often, I just wanted to get on with the story. It was too much Magdalena, and no, I never thought I would find myself saying that, and not enough of the “supporting cast.” And Magdalena’s dialogue never seemed to stop. Not enough action, too much dialogue, and a bare bones mystery let me down. Still, fans of this series will want to read this story, but if you are new to the series, read one of the earlier ones. This mystery won’t make a fan of you.
It's been a long time since I've read one of the Magdalena Yoder books, but unless my memory has gone, this is not nearly as amusing, nor as mysterious, as earlier books. In addition, characters seem to want to use a lot of Anglicisms, which seem out of place. An author who slandered the little town of Hernia is murdered. First Magdalena, as mayor, investigates most of the suspects. Then she's captured by the murderer, who tries to kill her. Her teenaged daughter talks like nothing seen on land nor sea, apparently to fit in with other teenagers. A disappointment.
Spoiler free rant 'cause I didn't even make it half way and I have so many issues with this book.
I picked it up from the mystery section of the library 'cause it seemed interesting like the death of pie?? But the book starting with the ten commandments should have been my first sign that I wouldn't like this. Pretty much immediately the mc tells the reader she had an affair with a jacuzzi she named Big Bertha. Which. It's a fucking jacuzzi. Also what is with her coming after pretty much every woman in this book? Like not even 15 pages in and she's already slut shaming. Also what the fuck is her business idea like she became a millionaire by having people pay her hundreds of dollars to clean the toilets and shit for the ExPeRiEnCe>?? Sure that definitely happens /s. And Ramat Sreym isn't even that hard to pronounce but the mc comes for her name anyway. And why isn't she a suspect? Ramat collapsed when she was tasting the mc's pie but she's not a suspect? Who trained Chief Officer Toy Graham (don't even get me started on his name)? Like nothing in this book makes any real sense. Also why did the author phonetically write in Ida's accent like I have no idea what the fuck she's saying. The mc is really acting like Ida is the crazy one like no she's the only one who has any sense and the bar is so low too like cmon. "People don't convert away from christianity" ??? what is the mc on. "We Americans are fanatics about equality" oh I'm sure /s. And how hard is it to hire an editor? Like this is the 19th book in the series or sm? But the difference between 'its' and 'it's' is too hard??? The last straw was when the mc mentioned a substitute who was introduced as a little out of it bc she hinted at believing the theory of evolution. Are you kidding? I shouldn't have even read this at all, definitely not for me.
This is number 19 and should be the last!! There was no story! Just pages and pages of Magdalena. I have read the earlier ones, saw this in the new book section, and thought, OK. But Magdalena's descriptions of herself have become ridiculous. How did she marry a handsome Jewish Dr.? I can't believe I kept reading it, but she didn't find the murderer until the last few pages, and those pages were ridiculous!!
To give this book one star was an act of generosity.
I enjoyed previous books in this series, but this particular book had no plot. Magdalena's excessive use of alliteration and sarcasm and put downs became incredibly tedious.
I will give the next book in the series one last try, to see if there is an actual story line in it.
That was disappointing. I've loved all of the PennDutch Inn books, until this one. There wasn't much of a story, and I normally laugh out loud while reading about those crazy characters...but not this time.
This author has such great plots but man, the repetition. Why do I need to hear about the milk tanker/shoe truck crash 3 times in the same book? ALPO is overexplained as well. Over and over the jumping to conclusions and how ugly she is and how big her feet are. It's like she needs to meet a number of words quota and just uses these repeated stories over and over without adding anything to the story. The wailing has to stop too--almost once a chapter someone is wailing. I've read the series up to this book and every time, I remember why I stopped.
Closer to 1.5 stars. The change in publishers, and editor, I presume, has changed a dependably readable light mystery series into an absurdist, self-referential spectacle. It has some amusing parts, though.
Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen is back in a new book set at her Pennsylvania Mennonite Bed and Breakfast. Soon after the book opens, Ramat Sreym, a character from a previous one in the series, appears on the scene, but not for long. When she was a guest in the B & B, she observed the community rather closely, then wrote a tell-all, exaggerate somewhat best seller about the people. She was invited back, before the locals had read the book, to judge the annual pie baking contest. Before she could declare the winner, she landed on her face in Magdalena’s Peach Pie, totally dead. The cause of death was poison and the new police chief, Toy Graham, asked Magdalena to talk to the townspeople to help him find the killer. Magdalena talks to a lot of the community members, the questions about Sreym are superficial. The main emphasis of the book is an introduction of the characters, some of whom are not actually on the scene, and light references to incidents in previous books in the series. Perhaps that is because this book was published in England and the United States and appears to be introducing new readers to the series. It includes comments about England, especially food and language, as well as Myers’ traditional sneaky ribald comments. Myers enjoys words and twisting them to get interesting, off-beat meanings. Among my favorites: “Then with all the authority bestowed upon me vis-a-vis the status of a pretend police woman, a counterfeit cop and an invertebrate investigator (I have been called spineless, mind you)....” “Like every female, everywhere, she had been born knowing how to manipulate her father. (Surely, this is the reason why the word ‘manipulate’ begins with the word man.)” There is a bit of repetition, (“Mennonites of Amish derivation feel more guilt than Catholics and Jews combined....” and the deaths of her parents) something I don’t remember from her other books. There are four pie recipes. As a long-time Tamar Myers fan, I was disappointed in THE DEATH OF PIE. I hope it encourages new readers to check some of the previous books in the series to flesh out some of the tidbits. For example, she briefly mentions her first marriage but doesn’t mention the hilarious wedding cake story. I wish it had included endnotes or footnotes specifying which previous book carried the entire referenced incident. I hope she is back to her wonderful stories in future books.
This author has a talent for comedic wit and she isn't afraid to use it. And then use it again, and again, and even yet again. Unfortunately for me, the witticisms and the sarcasm and the self-abasement went much too far when they took up about 95% of the novel and the mystery took up the slim remainder. I started out thinking that I was really going to enjoy the novel once the introduction of the characters (and the humor) had leveled off and the investigation into the death of the famous author, Ramat Sreym, began in earnest because the premise for the novel sounded quite good and made me choose to read the book in the first place. The investigation didn't happen at all as a logical progression of uncovering facts. Instead Magdalena Yoder suddenly disclosed the one vital clue which had never even been hinted at and - bingo - crime solved.
If you are already a fan of this series, you know that residents of Hernia, Pennsylvania, seem to all have an eccentric bent and you will welcome them back with open arms. Their eccentricity is fine with me as long as they are allowed to also have times of being just plain, levelheaded folk so that the mystery aspect of the novel can be addressed. I didn't get that in this novel. Since this is my first foray into the Amish-Mennonite community in this part of Pennsylvania, I have to say I found their depiction slightly odd, yet rather endearing and I learned some valuable information about the Amish and the Mennonites. For those reasons alone I think the book was worth the time it took me to read it. As for the mystery aspect, a whole lot more attention needed to be paid to that. By the way, there are pie recipes interspersed throughout the novel. Chapter Five is Freni Hostetler's Recipe For Shoofly Pie, Chapter Ten is Brown Sugar Pie (Milche Flichte), Chapter Fifteen gives Doc Shafer's Recipe For Green-Tomato Pie, and Chapter Twenty contains Freni's Butterscotch Chiffon Pie. When tomato season hits in this part of the country I will definitely be trying the green tomato pie.
I received an ARC of this novel through NetGalley. The opinions expressed are my own.
So, with a new Publisher, based in Britain, Tamar Myers has to write a story that ret-cons some of the previous works, specifically mentioned: Butter Safe than Sorry, written by the author Ramat Sreym (author's name backwards), and that book is in-world of this story.
Someone has poisoned the author of the book who came back to judge a pie-eating contest and died face-first in Miss Yoder's apple pie.
The new Chief of Police, Toy Graham, asks Miss Yoder to help find the culprit and gives her a list, including Doc Shafer and Agnes Miller.
Through Magdalena's investigation, Agnes and Doc Shafer get together, the readers find out that Jacob (Mags' son) is still a year old, that she is still married to Gabriel Rosen, and Abigail is still a pre-teen.
Eventually, the villain kidnaps Magdalena and Alison, going to dispose of them later. They are arrested and shipped off - the story will probably never be the same.
Since the publisher changed, there are a lot of either British spellings or explanations about Americans and more references to Europe and European countries with their inhabitants.
Recipes Freni Hostetler's Recipe for Shoofly Pie Brown Sugar Pie (Milche Flichte) Doc Shafer's Recipe for Green-Tomato Pie Freni's Butterscotch Chiffon Pie
I’ve read and loved all of the books in this series up until the last couple which suddenly took a downward nosedive in quality. I could NOT finish this one! I got about 15% into it, and it felt like this former English major was tortured by a book made up of one run-on sentence. Said sentence could not be conjugated either, because I couldn’t even figure out what was going on. Add to that the fact that apparently the last book in the series was suddenly supposed to be a fictional book written by the murder victim of this book. I hadn’t read the last book in a while, but I know she left her husband, but now he’s back? I was completely confused, and I just could NOT finish. Keep in mind I have maybe only NOT finished 4 books since I retired 4 years ago out of hundreds. It has to be really, really bad for me to give up on it!
One thing for sure, I will not spend another penny on buying books in this series…if I give them a chance, I’ll get them at the library. It is not worth what they are trying to charge for them, not even close. Plus the last few don’t seem to be part of the original series on Amazon, so that is totally confusing.
I would suggest to anyone looking into this series that they read the earlier books in order, and stop at about 15 or 16. Time to retire this series.
Giving this book 3 stars is a generous rating. I don't think that this book was meant to be a comedy, but it was. The author has a unique way of describing situations and people that actually had me laughing out loud at times. However, unfortunately, this was supposed to be a mystery. I never did fully follow how our heroine went from "suspect" to "suspect" on behalf of the new (gay) sheriff in town (who's wages are paid by said heroine, as the richest person in this little town).
The murder victim is an author of a best selling book on the citizens of the little community of Hernia, none of whom are treated fairly by her vicious pen and words. Any one of them could have killed her in revenge. She had been invited to judge the annual pie contest -- why, I could not figure out -- and fell face down in the pie she was tasting last. On her previous visit to the town, she had stayed in the Bed and Breakfast run by our heroine, and interacted with just about everyone else in town in some way. One by one the suspects are eliminated by a process that is not clear. When the guilty one is finally revealed, the reasoning behind the reveal and arrest just do not make much sense. The murder method I could understand; the reasoning a little far-fetched.
What a waste of time.... After she wrote, Butter Off Dead, the rumor was she had ended this series. How sad that it wasn't true. Pages of nonsense writing and short on story. Some of the best characters in past books were mentioned briefly if at all. Do not waste your time when there are so many other really good books to read. When I think how long I waited for this book from the library, I just shake my head.....
Living in Amish country, I've picked up Myers' books several times. Now after reading one, I won't be tempted again. Like reading a vaudeville script. "Jokes fly a mile a minutes. It gets too much very quickly. '
This was simply awful. The books in the series have been getting worse over time. This shows that it is past time to end the series. There are lots of problems. But the worst is that Magdalene is now mean-spirited instead of funny. And funny was the reason to read the books.
I tried to finish it, but at page 106 I was done. The beginning had me so confused that I had to check the book order to see if I read one out of order. I didn’t. In this book, we find that the last book wasn’t real. It was written by the victim in this book. What the heck?!
I used to love this series, but the main character has gotten so far away from being a conservative Mennonite that it’s ridiculous. I felt like I was reading a Harlequin the way she described her time in her hot tub.
Multiple times, the author talks about the Amish being related to each other. I got it the first time. She went into overdrive with her use of alliteration. There was absolutely no plot development. The characters are getting stale. After a while, I felt like I was listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher talk waa-waa-waa. The main character just blabbed on and on about stupid stuff. The entire idea of her driving around in the police car in a “pseudo uniform” is just stupid.
It was almost like someone entirely different is writing the book. Fun fact, this book takes place in America. We don’t use kph for speed limit. We use mph. This is a new publisher based in Great Britain, so I’m guessing someone there changed it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
1 1/2 stars rounded up. Oh bless poor Tamar. I think she’s starting to hate this series as much as I do! Writer Ramat Sreym dies and face plants in Magdalena’s pie (all this before the story even starts), so we are forced to spend the rest of the book listening to Magdalena’s bad puns and sarcasm IN EVERY SINGLE THING SHE SAYS while she bumbles around, trying to find the murderer. I couldn’t even tell you anything else that happened in this book. Magdalena was so irritating that I couldn’t concentrate on anything else. I’m going to have to give up this series. It started out so strong! I hate that it’s gotten so, so bad.
These mysteries are great and lots of dry humour thrown in, along with super recipes that can be tried out. In this novel Magdalena is asked by the young and inexperienced Chief of Police to help investigate the death of a local author who had once stayed in Magdalena's Inn. The author dies whilst judging a local pie contest and this has really upset Magdalena as it was her pie the author fell into when she died.
So this book was really weird because the last book didn't actually happen apparently. And this really really needed a good editing because there were tons of continuity errors. People's names were different, situations were told differently than what they happened in earlier books. I only gave it 3 stars because there were some really funny moments. Other than that I was really confused.
Truly love all The Pennsylvania Dutch mzstery books and look forward to the next one!
I have enjoyed the Amish humour in this book and highly recommend it for a great chuckle. I read many paragraphs to my very sick friend, who is an Amish descendant, to make her smile. Great thanks!
I read this one- painfully. I was a fan of the earlier series but this book was drawn out, cheesy, and just not good. It feels like a dead horse was taken out back and beaten some more. I never want to hear the words sturdy underwear or brogans again. I am disappointed that a series that started so strong has to be drug across the finish line.
Lots of silliness prevails in this book about a death during a pie contest in the village of Hernia. Magdalena Portulaca Yoder Rosen must rise to the occasion and help the police chief solve the murder. The primarily Amish-Mennonite community, Magdalena's faith, and a host of crazy characters permeate this book. If you need a quick read and some laughter, you might enjoy this book.
I haven't read Tamar Myers in years and forgot how entertaining Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen and the town of Hernia was I'll be visiting again soon