A Taste for Murder

Hemlock Falls Mysteries #1

by Claudia Bishop, Justine Eyre (Narrator)

This is the first book in a delightful series featuring two sleuthing sisters.

Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah Quilliam, with her talent for business, runs the Inn at Hemlock Falls, while her sister, Meg, keeps the guests happy with her culinary abilities. But when it comes to murder, the Quilliam sisters have to rely on other skills—spotting clues, solving crimes, and catching culprits. The History Days festival is the highlight of the year in Hemlock Falls, and the reenactment of the seventeenth-century witch trials is the highlight of the festival. But this year the mock execution becomes all too real when a woman is crushed under a pile of stones. The victim has been identified as a guest at the inn, but the killer remains unknown—so far.

08:26:30 hours.

Genres: Mystery, Cozy Mystery, Cozy, Audiobook, Fiction, Adult, Mystery Thriller

9 pages, Audiobook

First published September 1, 1994

About the author

Claudia Bishop is the nom de plume of mystery & fantasy author Mary Stanton.

Reviews

[Sari Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

I found this book disappointing. I'd expected to love it - I'm a fan of cozy mysteries, and used to live in the town in Central New York on which the fictional town of Hemlock Falls is based. The characters seemed a bit wooden, the dialogue was stilted, nothing about the writing style had any grace. All in all, I found it to be an unsatisfying read. Not recommended.

[Kristen · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have rarely come across book in which every single character is so singularly obnoxious, stupid, or both!

I normally like the cozy formula of the small town filled with characters and kooks. But usually at least SOME of them are likeable, or, at the very least, people you can feel sorry for. Not here! Even Quill, who is placed in the role of amateur sleuth, and who is the only character I *might* have connected with, lets people push her around and take advantage of her to a ridiculous, and unnecessary degree.

There was a lot of potential in this series, but I can't connect to a story when all I want to do with every single character in the book is smack them across the face. This is a DNF for me, and I absolutely would not recommend it.

[Selah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh. Quill is an idiot, Meg is a spoiled brat, and they are the worst business owners of all time! I guess the mystery was okay, but it was overshadowed by the truly horrible characters.

[Leslie · Rating 1 out of 5]

To be fair, this is my first step into the genre. It was such a disaster, I'm stepping back! I'm not even sure what genre It is. I like mystery. I like investigative plots. I don't mind a little humor thrown in.
It wasn't really a mystery. I would call this genre " eyeroll exercise".
The silly foodie descriptions of every bite everyone ate was, well, silly. And the characters were created by an eighth grade Lit student. Sisters who run an inn in a small town. One is a great chef. One is a formerly noted artist who, having become disillusioned, moves to this small town, with mostly mildly "off" citizens and definitely "off" guests. The inn stays full, for some reason. Are they traveling there just to eat? The town had no draw except for a bizarre historical portrayal of the old witch trials?
Like stereotypes? They have LOTS!
Her southern character is a racist. Her elderly guest is a mean crotchety old woman. Her salesman guest is a skirt chasing letch. The handsome sheriff is the only other intelligent person in town. The religious housekeeper is a crazy zealot!The sister chef is a temperamental, tortured food pro. But somebody needs to keep these idiots in line. Enter Quill, the owner The innkeeper is FAR classier and intelligent than these idiot small town folk- who aren't worldly- except they LOVE a good Italian zabaglione! Imagine that!
This was the least enjoyable novel with the last believable characters that I have read in a long time. But this author has a successful series here.
So I am obviously missing the appeal. But I hated this so much, I don't want to look for It anymore.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was OK. Sarah Quilleran owns the Hemlock Falls Inn. She has the usual wacky staff members, a holy roller who puts Bible tracts in the rooms of the guests. Her sister Meg is the chef for the inn. She insists on doing things her own way even if it is forbidden by the board of health. She doesn't like a guest, he gets baking soda or ipecac in his food. It is the annual reinactment of a famous witch trial. Sarah gets one of the guests to play the part of the witch who is pressed by stones. The woman is murdered, Sarah's manager is missing and guests are being cancelled by a mysterious caller. This book is OK but that's about it. The story moves along but the characters are almost all annoying. A few more could have been murdered.

[Taye · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried, but I really couldn't get into A Taste for Murder. I enjoy cosy mysteries and was hoping that this would be a new series I could get into, but it was way too slow and I felt the characters were generally unlikeable, especially the two leads. Quill is supposed to be a successful, savvy business owner, and a smart woman, and yet she doesn't ever seem to show any backbone. Meg, her sister, is supposed to be co-owner of the Inn but seems to have no problems with constantly putting their business in jeopardy.

Meg is the head chef at the Inn, and is supposedly dead set on winning the Inn's food an extra star rating, but she doesn't even consider that the reviewer could be literally anyone, as they're anonymous, while she's going around sabotaging people's food just because she doesn't like them. That wouldn't be a positive trait anyway, but to do that knowing that the Inn is being visited by a mystery reviewer at the same time is just so incredibly stupid that I can't really buy Meg as astute in any other context. Then there's Quill, who despite regularly mentioning how concerned she is with the Inn's reputation and success, just ... lets Meg do what she wants. She doesn't even put up much of a fight.

In fact, Quill seemed incapable of standing up to anyone, even when they're loudly berating her in front of her customers, or sexually harassing her. Her silence and unwillingness to stand up for herself was so frustrating that I honestly couldn't understand the character's motivations for behaving the way she was. Presumably Quill would have had to be tough at some point in order to establish her business, but it wasn't in evidence in any of the book that I read.

None of the characters felt three dimensional to me, but that's particularly true of the leads, and I found it frustrating to read. Maybe in subsequent books the author has found their feet a bit, but I couldn't get through this and ended up not finishing it.

[C. (Comment, never msg). · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the fifth volume of ‘Claudia Bishop’s’ food mystery series in a bargain bin and after a few years, procured the prequels to ”Death Dines Out”. There are four but in confusion, I first tried the fifth. I found it terrible but liked her angel series under her real name, Mary Stanton. I finally gave the first food novel a try. I was glad to orient myself into the cast of characters properly.

As a mystery adventure, I readily admit “A Taste For Murder” is superior. However I can’t bear the writing. Everyone has words or expressions that grate on their nerves and she presses those buttons too regularly for me to bear. Also her approach to character interaction in all of her books is argumentative. Even when she uses southern manners in her angel novels, she doesn’t seem capable of envisioning rapport between colleagues and family members that isn’t tinged with discord; which I find unpleasant. There are indeed yelling, pushy types in real life but I have no wish to read about them and ‘Maître Meg Quilliam’ is such a one.

It isn’t my nature to leave any novel incomplete. Even though I haven’t opened the remaining three, I wrestled with giving them away unread. This is difficult for me but I have thousands of books awaiting me and might as well skip something that would be an irritant. For many people, the concept of a sister team running ‘Hemlock Inn’ and restaurant is nice. Near-misses and two deaths were a great adventure. However ‘Sarah’s relationship with a small town police chief is cliché; being warned ”not to snoop”. I detest when police behave that way in fiction. Let’s put aside safety as a given. If someone offered successful help with a time-sensitive job, I’d thank them!

[Diane · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book in a combination copy with A Dash of Death, and I will not be reading A Dash of Death. I was so glad to finally come to the end of A Taste for Murder - in fact, closed the book a few pages before the end - enough is enough! I found the story interesting, but the writing was tedious and seemed to go on forever. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this book. But really . . . ONE recipe?!?!?!?!

[Regan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay....an editor once told me having too many characters that interact with each other whose names start with the same letter or sound alike can get confusing for the reader. That was true for me in this one. It kinda dragged through the first 2/3 but the ending was worth the read.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, smart and cozy-- a perfect whodunit cozy mystery :-)

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Claudia Bishop's A Taste for Murder, the first installment int he Hemlock Falls Culinary Cozy Mysteries series, this debut series packs a punch of culinary delights and a lot of surprises. For Sarah "Quill" Quilliam and her sister Meg, they prepared to get ready for the Hemlock Falls History Days skit at their inn. While Quill managed the business end and Meg the kitchen, they had an electric bunch of guests to reside in the inn. But things took a turn for the worse, when first there was an accident on the balcony and two mishaps during the play outside of the inn, when two people ended up murdered--one of them was no accident. As Quill looks for clues on her own and her accountant John disappears from the inn, making him look up a prime suspect, she did her snooping on her own and pointed her finger at her other guests in the inn, including the uncouth Keith Baumer who's been nothing but rude. Though Quill has growing feelings for Myles the sheriff, Quill and her sister put their heads together to pick out the most unlikely suspect, when Meg becomes sick from her poisoned coffee. In the end, she couldn't believe her eyes on who done it and why for the most unsavory reasons of them all.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

If this a cozy mystery, then they are not for me. Its way to long before we have a body and the idea of seeing the recreation of the town’s witch trials caught my attention but not enough to keep reading. The woman leaves the big city to the small town to open a B&B is just too Hallmark Christmas for me. Next, I don’t know how she can keep her place open constantly comping food and rooms. Still once the bodies fall the mystery kept me reading even if the main character isn’t on I want to follow into other adventures.
 

[Jen Solak · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a fine mystery, but it is very dated and I was not a fan of the way fat people were talked about nor the use of a racist term. I’ll try book two to see if the series can be redeemed.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointing mystery as both Quill and Meg are not very likeable characters given they are the main characters.

[Annie Levesque · Rating 2 out of 5]

2⭐️
I wanted a cosy mystery and listened to the audiobook. I feel like it was missing something, the writing was ok, plot and characters were meh. It is and feels dated.

[Lis Carey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sarah "Quill" Quilliam is the owner/manager of the Inn at Hemlock Falls, in Hemlock Falls, New York. Her sister Meg is the chef. They're not natives of this little upstate New York town, but moved there from New York City, after Meg's husband died and Quill decided she needed a break from her art career. They're both enjoying their new life, and the Inn is just starting to be profitable--when they have a week out of their worst nightmares and disaster may be upon them.

It's the week of the town's annual History Days, a major feature of which is a play reenacting a famous local witch trial. The local girl intended to play the witch is down with the flu, and one of the guests at the Inn, Mavis, is recruited to stand in for her.

Even though Quill doesn't like her, and she's friends with Quill's biggest local problem, Marge Schmidt, owner of a local diner, this is okay--until the first night audience for the play realizes that the body that has just been crushed under a barn door piled with rocks is not the dummy it should be, but Mavis herself.

Among the other guests are Keith Baumer, a salesman with roaming hands and not nearly as charming as he thinks he is, Edward Lancashire, possibly the L'Apperitif reviewer come to award Meg her coveted fourth star, and Amelia (I'm blanking on her last name), Mavis' elderly employer, for whom she works as a companion. Some of these people offend Meg, who responds by doing interesting things to their food (baking soda, ipecac), even as she is falling all over herself to impress the presumed restaurant reviewer.

There were some silly things that annoyed me that likely wouldn't bother most people, such as the fact that their town's witch was executed by crushing, and there's mention of witches elsewhere in the colonies being burned, whereas English law prevailed throughout the colonies, and convicted witches were hanged. Always. Accused witches who refused to enter a plea, whether innocent or guilty, were crushed to death. Burning was the law in much of Europe--but not where English law prevailed.

But I assume that wouldn't bother anyone who isn't a history buff.

More annoying is that Meg comes off as a flighty, irresponsible, spoiled brat, right up till the end where we are supposed to believe she's the observant, level-headed one. Quill's character development also seems inconsistent. There are clear mentions throughout the book of the sisters having collaborated on, or interfered in, a previous case. This is clearly identified as the first in the series, but it really didn't feel like it; we weren't being introduced to the characters, and there's a lot of back story incorporated in ways that made me feel strongly that there was an earlier book that I'd missed.

And a point which did not bother me, but will bother people who read cooking/restaurant mysteries in part for the fun, creative recipes: Just one recipe.

All in all, this was okay, but just okay, and I will not be making any effort to hunt down later books in the series.

I borrowed this book from the library.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first in a series featuring the young-ish proprietress of a grand old inn in the New England town of Hemlock Falls. Her name is Sarah “Quill” Quilleran and she is joined by her sister Meg, a renowned gourmet chef who runs the kitchen of the Inn, John, the American Indian hotel manager and accountant and her boyfriend the sheriff. The book takes place during the town’s festival celebrating its witch-persecuting past and when people start dying, Quill starts interfering. Rather incompetently actually. This book was okay. You had the quirky village and supporting characters, an engaging enough mystery involving town members and guests at the hotel and the tone was light. I liked the Inn setting. However, I was pretty bored by Quill as a character and kept wishing the book focused more on her sister, the chef, who had more spunk. It also felt like, even though this was book one in the series that there were all these casual references to past events and Quill is already in a relationship with the town’s sheriff. Basically it felt like I was coming into the middle of a series rather than the beginning and there was really no romance to speak of.

[Shala · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was so excited to start this series. I've had the 1st for several years and thought it would be right up my alley. I love cozy mysteries, especially ones with a cooking/baking theme. However, I did not like it. In the first chapter, there were so many characters introduced that I was already lost. Not to mention, by the first 50 pages, I already didn't like the majority of those characters. My final reason for the 1 star rating is that the language and writing just didn't read like a cozy mystery. I found myself skimming the paragraphs that weren't dialogue just to get to the end. I'm very disappointed and will not be continuing with the series.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very light, fun read with a good mystery and a quaint setting. As the first book in this series, it got my attention enough to want to read more. It was a bit tough to keep all of the characters straight because there were so many. The "cast of characters" page in the front of the book helped a bit although it was cumbersome to keep flipping back and forth. A great cozy mystery to kick back and relax with in hand.

[Emily Cullen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When a woman actually dies at the witch trial reenactment, inn owner Sarah Quilliam wants to investigate, despite warnings from her sheriff boyfriend. This is the first in the cozy mystery series featuring Sarah managing the business end of things, and sister Meg, a highly regarded chef. I'm cautiously ordering the second book in the series even though I don't feel it's as good as other series I am currently reading through.

[Juliet Minerva Swift · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am in a cosy mystery mood. I read a lot so far, and they are the only reason my reading challenge hasn’t been completely abandoned. Also because I listened to all of them in audiobook format, which fills in any empty time when I am commuting or working or bored and cleaning my place. Cosy mysteries are usually simple so I can listen to them without problem and less mental focus than other genres.

While most of them so far have been a tepid but satisfying enough 3 stars, this here is one of the bad ones.

Audiobooks are hard for me because I have an internal voice that “talks” in my head at all times, and it reads books aloud when I am looking at the words on a page. And the narrator of an audiobook never sounds like my voice in my head so it always feels sort of weird.
This voice actress was not really of my taste. Her voice was a bit guttural, like when you talk but like making your voice come out “grated” from your throat (I have no idea how to describe this but just know it was not a smooth normal voice) and that bothered me SO MUCH! Doesn’t matter that she was really good at making different voices for all characters, the general narrator voice was not it.

The story itself was not really well written. I couldn’t really picture the settings because they were not described??? I don’t remember a single evocative description of the inn or the surrounding area so I was always confused about where it was all taking place.

The characters were the most annoying bit for sure. Quill is the main character but she had no action. She was not active, but rather was moved around by other people passively. Meg was doing whatever she wanted and Quill said nothing, Keith kept sexually harrassing her and she said nothing ??? like I don’t know if this was different in the past and maybe I am too much of a modern woman but he would be out the door in SECONDS if he did all that to me or someone working with/for me. But Quill was mute.
She also didn’t say a thing when her employee started giving out creepy religious pamphlets and writing on people’s bathroom mirrors with lipsticks??? Immediately fired with no questions asked!! But she said,... you guessed it. Nothing.
There was also an event where I think people were meant to pray in the dining hall??? And it was taken over by religious fanatics that performed an exorcism and started punching one of the guests but like QUILL??? You didn’t call them, send them away?? And are you really just there watching while they carry out an exorcism and punch your guest! God what a useless owner.

I am maybe a bit confused because maybe it was the year 1994, when I was just born so I might not know the uses back then, or the USA, but like is it really normal to have prayers in the dining hall? Or a recreation of the killing of the witches every year?
Maybe it’s because I live in Italy and if we were to recreate all of our history, there would be constant events and we’d have no time for anything else. But I really don’t get the appeal of a silly short play where a woman is killed for being a witch.

Meg is also deserving of its own little paragraph because the woman is a poor idiot. She is apparently so enamoured with her cooking that she cares only about how to make something good, and not how to cook something safe for human consumption. I would say the aim of a restaurant is to feed people, and I would say a chef should really try and cook food that is safe and doesn’t risk giving people deadly pathogens like salmonella. But what can you expect from someone that gives an obnoxious guest ipecac to make him sick on purpose??? Especially when there’s likely going to be an undercover food critic visiting your restaurant????
And of course Quill seems to be unable to stop her sister from putting the lives of their clients and in turn their business at risk.

Mavis was a weird character. If not for the name, I would have not realised it was always the same person as her personality kept on changing.

As for the mystery itself, the old woman (can’t spell the name since I listened to the audiobook) was really obviously the killer. It didn’t take much to see that, like she was so outraged at the start and was always trying to get things for free, and then she is the one that says that Mavis was doing it for the insurance money. Also she wanted tea with tap water so quite obviously that is weird and done only because the bottled water has something in.
But still Quill, for all her investigating, didn’t find anything out. Meg had already hypothesised who the culprit was and the police were on it too, so what’s the point of Quill? Why are we following her?

And lastly, why on Earth did the author decide to give all characters the exact same sounding names???
We have Gil and Quill. Gil is also called something like Gilmeister as a surname and I can’t tell if Gil is a nickname or if his parent-given name is Gil Gilmeister.
Then we have John and Sean, and the triplet Meg-Marge-Myles. Importantly, Meg and Marge are both chefs, and Meg and Myles are people close to Quill. That’s not confusing at all.

Absolutely not continuing with this series, I think it is a 2-star just because I didn’t hate it with passion. Maybe it is because I listened to it half-mindedly and slept through a bit of it. But this was disappointing.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and look forward to continuing in this series. I am very familiar with this part of New York state and almost attended Cornell University. It was a refreshing "old-fashioned who-done-it" mystery which kept me guessing until the end. I had my suspicions but the way the author handled the ending for one of the characters was extremely creative...

[Madelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a nice cozy mystery. Hemlock Falls is a pretty little town in upstate New York. Sarah Quilliam and her sister Meg run the Inn at Hemlock Falls. When it comes to murder, the two sisters use their talent for detection.

[Robin Dillon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 2 sisters that ‘star’ in this book are the most unlikable characters I’ve read in a long time. Quil won’t stand up to anyone and her sitter Meg is a brat. No real chef would ignore the rules of the dept of health. I won’t be reading any more of this series.

[Cheryl Sabas · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you love the Gilmore Girls, but wish there was more about the inn and less about Rory, then this is the series for you! Set in a pretty little town with colorful local events and quirky traditions, with a protagonist innkeeper (who left her day job, being a successful visual artist) and an obsessed gourmet cook (the two are sisters), and with a concierge from an interesting ethnic group to show that the community is sensitively diverse, yet comfortably assimilated--this series does a great job keeping its crime specifically local and theme based. No spoilers!

I was kept guessing, and found the ending satisfying. It's always fun to think if I had been just a bit more observant I would have figured it out. That was the case with this murder plot. The only thing I didn't like--and this is a personal gripe for which I probably shouldn't dock a star, but I do--is that the officer of the official investigation is also the love interest of the plucky female protagonist. At least they don't get angry at each other as so many authors allow their lovers to do: with anger as a substitute for traditional masculinity on one side and for feminist strength on the other. There's nothing wrong with anger per se, but in this case I was happy that the lovers fought for, not against each other in a quest to solve a crime which really was mutual.

I will read the next one!

[Yolande · Rating 2 out of 5]

March: Flavour
This foodie cosy mystery was good background noise, but nothing special.

Sarah 'Quill' Quilliam and her sister Meg run the Hemlock Falls Inn in upstate New York. In the lead up to the town's big tourist draw card event History Days, in which the witch trial of Goody Martin is re-enacted, a series of disasters, mishaps and a couple of murder seem set to close the inn. Quill, artist-cum-hotel manager decides to investigate.

Quill, unlike other cosy mystery detectives has no real aptitude for mystery solving and the sheriff (also her boyfriend) ends up solving the case the Quill mostly just obstructing the investigation and running her busy further into the ground. Her sister was also a bit bratty and selfish, caring more about the 'authenticity' of her recipes than the health and safety of customers, or the survival of the inn.

However, the food theme was strong throughout with the rivalry between the inn and the local diner owners, a possible food critic in town and the looming presence of local chain Dog Gone Good Dogs. The narration by Justine Eyre was well done and the secondary characters were fun. Also the blast from the not-so-distant past (the '90s) was nice.

I don't think I will be racing to read the rest of the series.

[L.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a pleasant surprise. Since it was published in 1994 (and at one point there was an indication that it might have been written in the late 80's) I didn't expect to enjoy it much. Back then the cozy mystery genre was very different from what it is today, but I thought the story was fun. There was a lot of action and a lot of slapstick humor which kept the story interesting. My only complaint is that there were a TON of characters, several of which had names that began with the same letter, and I found myself flipping back to the list of characters in the front of the book even to the very end. If there hadn't been a character list I think I would have given this book a lower star rating because I would have been hopelessly lost. I can easily see myself being perfectly fine with the huge character list after a few books though, just like with Donna Andrews's Meg Langslow series because of the fact that the characters did have distinct personalities. I will definitely be continuing the series!

[Cindyann · Rating 1 out of 5]

Audio-DNF
Had to hard stop at part 5 (in the audio markings) at a word I find detestable, used in a way that was absolutely unnecessary. The character involved is a (recently revived) Christian that swears and leaves notes condemning people in their hotel rooms..and the owner can't get her to stop. WHAT? Uh. NO. Just NO. I checked the first release date. 1994. The statement by the character did not move the plot along and did not have any bearing on the story (up to the point I stopped reading). I was so hoping for a cozy little mystery after reading serious thrillers. Besides that, the characters were not very likable. The owner can't control any of her staff, including her explosive sister. Everyone else seemed to be very predictable and overdone. I wish her the best but I won't be reading a second book.

[ReadinIt · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh! This novel had a very boring start (2/5 stars) with a cast of unlikeable mid-90's style stereotypical characters and devolved from there. The MC and her sister are supposed to own a culinary hot-spot of an inn only the owner manager MC is a spineless childish individual who procrastinates and tries to avoid conflict and confrontation and is unable to say 'no' to anyone. Meanwhile, her sister chef is some gorgon no one wants to try to point contradict. She is also so ridiculously unprofessional that she's willing to sabotage her own dishes because she doesn't like (what she's heard about) a customer and is also unwilling to follow public health notices. It was when I reached this point in the story that I DNFed this. With owners this immature and unprofessional, that inn deserves to go under and the sooner the better.

[Wendy Bouchard-swain · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t usually write reviews, but this was the most ridiculous book I’ve ever read. There’s not one likable character in the bunch, and barely any relatable interactions between them. I initially thought it might have been written by an AI program that couldn’t quite capture how real people would speak and act in real situations, but I doubt that’s the case since it was originally published in 1994. The only thing more shocking than the fact that it got published in the first place is the realization that this was just the first in an entire series of books about these “sleuthing sisters” (insert eye roll). Why anyone would willingly dive back into the lives of these flighty, angry, whiny people is a more compelling mystery than anything offered up in this book.