Going, Going, Ganache (Cupcake Bakery Mystery, #5)

by Jenn McKinlay

A new Cupcake Bakery Mystery from New York Times bestselling author Jenn McKinlay is icing on the cupcake!

After a cupcake-flinging fiasco at a photo shoot for a local magazine, Melanie Cooper and Angie DeLaura agree to make amends by hosting a weeklong corporate boot camp at Fairy Tale Cupcakes.  The idea is the brainchild of billionaire Ian Hannigan, new owner of SWS (Southwest Style), a lifestyle magazine that chronicles the lives of Scottsdale’s rich and famous. He’s assigned his staff to a team-building week of making cupcakes for charity. 

It’s clear that the staff would rather be doing just about anything other than frosting baked goods. But when the magazine’s creative director is found murdered outside the bakery, Mel and Angie have a new team-building exercise—find the killer before their business goes AWOL.

INCLUDES SCRUMPTIOUS RECIPES

• ISBN10: 0425252078
• ISBN13: 9780425252079
• Publish Date: 2 April 2013 (first published 1 April 2013)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: Berkley Publishing Corporation,U.S.
• Format: Paperback (US Mass Market)
• Pages: 304
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780425252079

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

I was dreading this one because of hints of a new love triangle made by my fellow friends. I decided to just pick it up and get it over with lest it sit on Mt. TBR indefinitely. I have mixed feelings, so I'll start with the mystery it self - very well done. Almost a locked room type-ish mystery in that Mel and her partner had to work with each of the suspects in the kitchen for 4 days while the murder is sussed out. Even so, the mystery was well-crafted with no clear or obvious suspect and the author had me discovering the murderer at the same time Mel did.

Now - on to the characters themselves. The introduction of a possible love triangle is, on the surface, disappointing and annoying. Mel and Joe are good together and it feels like the author is really really screwing with the dynamic that has worked so well in this series so far by introducing Detective Martinez. But I can see why Ms. McKinlay might have done it: a romantic relationship that introduced some sexual tension into the mix as well as involving a detective into the group that gets them more information and possibly more involvement in further crimes. Ms. McKinlay is going to have to treat this storyline carefully so as not to alienate the fans she already has. She's a stellar writer, so if anyone can pull it off, she can.

The writing of this book should be an example to many cozy authors out there - no paragraphs and pages of constant internal dialogue and repetitive summaries of the plot. Lots of snappy dialogue and a fast moving pace that kept me totally involved in the story (dinner's gonna be over an hour late tonight because I couldn't put the book down!) I look forward to the next book in the series to see how all this ends up!