Mystery Monday is back!  It has been crazy around here the last few weeks and I’ve gotten behind in several things. But hopefully things have sorted themselves out!

This week’s selection is A Deadly Grind by Victoria Hamilton (aka Donna Lea Simpson)

Synopsis:

When vintage cookware and cookbook collector Jaymie Leighton spies an original 1920s Hoosier brand kitchen cabinet at an estate auction, it’s love at first sight. Despite the protests of her sister, Rebecca, that the 19th-century yellow-brick house they share in Michigan is already too cluttered with Jaymie’s “junk”, she successfully outbids the other buyers and triumphantly takes home her Hoosier.

But that night on the summer porch where they’ve left the Hoosier to be cleaned up, a man is murdered, struck on the head with the steel meat grinder that is part of the cabinet. Who is this stranger—and what was he doing on their porch? Does his death have anything to do with the Hoosier?

As the police struggle to determine the man’s identity, Jaymie can’t help doing a little digging on her own, accompanied by her three-legged Yorkie Poo, Hoppy. But in her bid to uncover the truth about the hidden secrets of the Hoosier, Jaymie may be the one who ends up going, going…gone!

Thoughts:

This is the first in a new series about vintage kitchen items….so this cozy combines several of my favorite things: mysteries and anything having to do with a kitchen!   I have noticed one thing with most cozies, they are usually set in small towns.  This isn’t a rule, just what I usually run across. I like that though because you don’t try and imagine the large city and places they are writing about if you have been to that city.  Although that is nice sometimes. 

Anyway, A Deadly Grind, captures the small town charm without being hokey.  Jaymie gets herself into sticky situations while investigating the murder that happened at her home (I think this is a prerequesite for all heroines!) and also captures the interest of not one, but two men in this small town.  (I think this is also a prerequisite for all books!)

I truly enjoyed the book and give it 4 stars and two thumbs up and look forward to the second book in this new series.