Monday, April 11, 2011

Mind Your Own Beeswax-Hannah Reed

Mind Your Own Beeswax
Hannah Reed
Berkley, May 3 2011, $7.99
ISBN: 9780425241592

In Moraine, Wisconsin, Story Fischer runs the Wild Clover grocery store and manages the Queen Bee honey beekeeping business. Story hosts a candle making killer event at her store. In attendance is a woman she sort of recognizes, but cannot quite place. After class is over, Story learns who her student is. When Lauren Kerrigan was a teen, she drive drunk and killed the Chief of Police.

After being away from town for years, Lauren has come home. Many of the Moraine residents are outraged with her return. However, soon afterward someone kills Lauren near Story’s runaway jail-breaking bees. Another villager Hetty is also found dead as the Kerrigan family fume over the death while some townsfolk insist the legendary lethal Lantern Man who haunts the old logging road murdered her. Story knows not to get involved, but investigates anyway as she seems to have an affinity for corpses.

The second Queen Bee amateur sleuth (see Buzz Off) is an amusing whodunit with a taste of honey front and center. Story’s bees break out of hive prison and that adds jocularity and a deep look at beekeeping to an entertaining zany mystery as the heroine with her summaries keeps thinking Mind Your Own Beeswax.

Harriet Klausner

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