When the best man’s corpse is found hanging from the grand staircase in the Snowden family mansion, Julia must put the chowder pot on the back burner and join the search for the killer. And with suspicion falling on her old crush, Chris Durand, the recipe for saving her business and salvaging her love life might be one and the same.
Thirty-year-old Julia left her fast-paced life working in finance in New York City and returned to her hometown of Busman’s Harbor, Maine, to help save her family’s struggling business, the Snowden Family Clambake Company. The business hosts traditional clambakes on a nearby island, which they own, but on the first big event of the summer, which was a wedding, disaster strikes ... the best man was found dead before the festivities even began.
The loan arrangement Julia had made with the bank only allowed them to have five days in which they could be closed. With the best man's death and the police investigation, this could eat up those days and the bank would call their loan and their business and property would be gone. So it's in Julia and her family's business' best interests to figure out who killed the best man and why.
This story was written in first person perspective in Julia's voice. I thought Julia was okay. She seems smart enough but I found it hard to believe she STILL has a crush on Chris, a fella she went to high school with ... she hasn't seen him in about ten years but still feels the same as she did when they were teenagers. They are friends (he seems to be her only friend) but he's never given her any indication he feels more. I wasn't buying the whodunnit or the ending so that was a bit of a disappointment.
I didn't think Julia's mother was written realistically. She's probably in her late 50s and has been widowed for about five years. With all the troubles the family business was in, everyone protected her by keeping it all from her. Considering this was a family business she ran with her late husband, I found it unbelievable that she was that clueless as to how bad things were. Julia's goal was to ensure the business didn't go under and her mother wouldn't lose her house and island that had been in the family for many generations. Mom needs a dose of reality.
It's a cozy mystery so there is no swearing, violence or adult activity. At the end of the book, there are recipes that were mentioned during the story like clam chowder and lobster mac 'n cheese.
This is the first book I've read by this author and I thought it was just okay. It's the first (of 12) in the Maine Clambake Mystery series. I liked it enough to check out the second in the series.
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