Sweet Pepper Hero (Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade, #4)

by J. J. Cook

Old rivalries heat up in the fourth Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade mystery from the national bestselling author of In Hot Water.

Fire chief Stella Griffin has been put in charge of judging the annual recipe contest, but Eric—her resident ghost and true culinary genius—has vanished. Before she can track down his latest haunt, she’s called in to investigate a local moonshine distillery that was set ablaze, making her realize there’s more than pies and cakes cooking in Sweet Pepper. 

As rumors of a revived whiskey war ignite, Stella turns to the town’s elders to help her find answers. The past might have some clues as to what has sparked the present fires. But when following a lead lands her in buried rubble, Stella realizes she must extinguish this case fast or she might be going down in flames.

• ISBN10: 0425279235
• ISBN13: 9780425279236
• Publish Date: 5 January 2016
• 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/9780425279236

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

This is one of those series: I can't say it's at all well-written, but I can't stop reading it either.  I read Sweet Pepper Hero with the intent of figuring out what it is that keeps me coming back even though the writing drives me just short of crazy.     

The writing is choppy, with short sentences and color commentary added in awkwardly; in many ways, it reads more like a middle school or maybe early ESL level of writing.  This is probably my biggest complaint.  I've always chalked it up to J.J. Cook being a pseudonym for a husband/wife writing team, Joyce and Jim Lavene; I figured something got lost in the team effort.  Sadly, Joyce Lavene passed away a few months ago; if the series continues at all it will be just Jim Lavene's voice and it will be interesting to see if that changes the narrative.   

The story starts off oddly: I get the impression that this book was meant to have a different plot when they wrote the cliffhanger into the last book, so the first few chapters of Sweet Pepper Hero were spent rapidly "solving" that mystery.  It was anti-climatic and again...awkward.   

There's also some woeful editing/copyediting, including missing words and sentences that just don't make sense.   It should by all rights go in the big black box, but no, it's staying.  In spite of the awkward writing, the Lavene's can create a great story and some solid mystery plotting, although Stella pulls such an insanely off-the-charts TSTL stunt at the end she honestly deserved to get pushed off the side of a mountain.  That move was contrary to the intelligent, stubborn and responsible persona the authors had, up until that moment, built for Stella.  

Then there's Eric.  He's a ghost, but if a ghost has to haunt your house, this is the one you want doing the haunting.  He cooks, he cleans, he makes sure the light is on and the door open when you come home at night and he's a strapping 6'5" tall blonde.  Yes please.     

The mystery plotting was really well done and some very nice slight of hand was done that lead me off in a different direction entirely.  The ending was quite dramatic for a cozy too, but it's the characters and the setting that are going to keep these books on the shelf and me buying the fifth book, if a fifth book is coming.  But mostly, it's going to be Eric.  ;)