Murder Takes The Cake by Gayle Trent

Murder Takes The Cake by Gayle Trent
288 pages
Published March 2011 by Simon & Schuster Adult
Source: the publisher

Daphne Martin's just moved back to her hometown after an ugly divorce and she's trying to get her cake decorating business up and running.  But finding the dead body of town busybody Yodel Watson when she delivers a cake to Yodel's house is not the best way to get your name out, particularly when someone begins spreading rumors that Yodel may have been poisoned.

When Yodel's daughter, who lives out of town, contacts Daphne and asks her to go back into Yodel's house to get a diary out for her, a diary that the murderer may have been after, Daphne agrees.  But once the book is in her hands, she can't resist the opportunity to find out just what's in the book that makes it so interesting.  What she finds in throws her for a loop--gossip about her mother that Daphne is just as eager to learn more about as she is to find out who murdered Yodel and clear her own name.

In the process, Daphne will meet up with an old beau, a wealthy woman with an entire wing of her house devoted to her prize-winning guinea pigs, and a whole assortment of the usual/unusual small town inhabitants you'd expect to find.

Trent has the makings of an interesting story here and has set up the characters nicely for future titles in the Daphne Martin Cake Mystery series.  Unfortunately, even a cozy mystery needs more tension than Martin was able to build, particularly in light of the fact that she kicked the book right off with the discovery of a body.Although there seemed to be any number of people with a reason to dislike Yodel, none of them seemed to have enough reason to want her dead. 

It may now be official; while I adore cozy mysteries, it appears that foodie mysteries may just not be my thing.  Every time I came to a part of the story where the cake decorating business became the focus of the story, my interest really started to flag.  Just as it seemed to in Joanne Fluke's Cream Puff Murder, the food scenes seem to detract from the story line for me, making the book feel like two different stories.  The emphasis in this one did seem to be more about the murder than the food than did Fluke's book and I did enjoy the plot line focusing on Daphne's relationship with her mother.  For fans of foodie mysteries, I do recommend giving this one a try.