A Rollicking Ride and a Preview of Trouble
Addison Moore’s Raspberry Tart Terror, Murder in the Mix book 30, serves up a corpse, a koala, a potential jail sentence, and an imminent “hatchlorette” party before (almost) everything is solved.
Lottie Lemon, professional baker and amateur sleuth, brings platters of raspberry tarts to her mother Miranda’s former B&B, which she’s sold to leeches Cormack and Cressida for a song, only to find they’ve renamed, redecorated, and ruined it with flashy hot pink everything. The Rondezvous Resort and Razzle Dazzle Day Spa seems to attract a perpetual crowd of young party animals who love the ghosts’ antics but won’t pay for a tour—to the chagrin of Miranda, now the housekeeper and only employee, and Lottie, who didn’t like the morbidity of the Last Thing They Ate tour but benefited from booming sales of the sweet treat found on or near the body.
The theft and DIY burial of Flo Canelli from book 29 comes back to bite Noah and Everett, especially Everett whose face was caught by the morgue camera. He takes the fall for Noah, who authorized the crimes,to make sure Lottie isn’t alone for her baby’s birth,
and rejects a plea deal that would put him away for 4 years rather than 15. He doesn’t want his child to be near kindergarten age when he’s released, and he still thinks of Noah as his brother, so he won’t let anyone else get near her.
In early February, at the Love Your Selfie Fest (a name only the leeches could invent), social media influencer Verity Prescott argues with several people, then collapses during a performance. She’s the murder victim, and her former pet koala, Teddy, appears in order to help Lottie (and Carlotta, who’s told gullible Teddy that she’s the primary detective and Lottie’s her sidekick) bring the killer to justice. Ironically, the judge in Lottie’s life has been suspended pending charges of stealing Flo’s body and burying it in Noah’s yard!
Defense attorney Fiona Dagmeyer, yet another woman who can “Essex” Everett, presents him with an offer of 4 years in prison instead of 15 if he’s found guilty. Everett refuses the plea deal, but he assumes he’ll go to prison for 15 years, miss most of the baby’s childhood, and waste Lottie’s remaining childbearing years, so he tells Fiona he wants to file divorce papers the day he’s found guilty. Then she’ll be free to create a new life with Noah, who he considers a brother after all this time.
On top of everything else, Everett hears from Jimmy Canelli, who threatens his life for desecrating his niece Flo’s resting place. It’s too much to expose Lottie and the baby to, so he keeps the threat from her.
Another series of threats comes to Evie—who took a selfie with Evie and said in the caption that when she died she’d “pass the mantle” to Evie. A few weeks and 6 million followers later, the threats (supposedly from Verity) begin: “Delete your account, dismiss your followers, and forget I told anyone anything. I know where you live and how to reach your mother and sibling-to-be.” Evie’s so scared she texts Everett, begging him to come home and not realizing that he’ll be mobbed by girls and women outside the house, waiting for #hotjudge, as Evie hashtagged him in a photo she accidentally took of him and Lottie in a compromising position (long story). Oddly, nobody’s mobbing #hotbaker! Anyhow, Everett and Noah pull whatever strings they can to figure out where the fake messages are originating. The source: the bookstore owned by a woman Verity argued with on her last night of life.
But the bookstore owner isn’t the killer, so it must be her ex-boyfriend, social media rival, or former coworker who told Verity she “wasn’t going to help her anymore.” The ex-boyfriend and rival are cleared, so it’s time to talk to the coworker, Juliet, who now runs a knitting shop on Main Street. She’s running a knitting workshop at the former B&B, so when Juliet steps outside for air, Lottie follows. You know what happens next: the denial, the pressure, the fear of going to jail, the fight (this time an attempted hit-and-run),the rescue and citizen’s arrest by Everett, the late arrival of Noah (who shows his driver’s license in lieu of the badge he turned in and an older gun he used in place of the one he had to surrender) and Ivy, and the confession, not only of murdering Verity but also of sending the threats to Evie “to help her avoid getting caught up in the fame that destroyed Verity.” Threatening a mother and her unborn child isn’t a good way to save a teenage girl from internet burnout, Everett points out. Ivy cuffs Juliet and takes her away, then Noah asks for a dance and Everett consents. While they’re dancing, Cormack waves a high school reunion invitation between them and says she’s RSVP’d for both of them—Lottie as Everett’s date and “Big Boss” Noah as hers! Noah repeatedly says he’s not going, but airhead Cormack, who’s “solved” the case by assuming it’s the person who said she’d kill to have hair like Verity’s, holds onto her delusions and tells them she’ll see the