annieb123
Written on Mar 30, 2022
Pleading the Fish is the 7th (and seemingly final) book in the Seaside Café cozy mystery series by Bree Baker. Released 29th March 2022 by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 336 pages and is available in mass market paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links. I've really become enamored of ebooks with interactive formats lately.
This is an engaging and well written small town cozy with a female protagonist (complete with potentially slightly magical seagull and cat, requisite handsome lawman romantic interest, and wise aunties dispensing advice and sweet tea (it's a southern thing) with equal abandon). The pool of suspects is small, and although the denouement and resolution are fairly easy to guess beforehand, they're well written and satisfying. It's a fast and very easy read - light cozy mystery and quite entertaining. The language is squeaky clean and there's no graphic gore or sexual content.
The authors have provided an extended epilogue at the end of the book which ties up loose ends and gives a look at the future for the cast of characters. Although it's self-contained, since it's the last book in the series, it will spoil the endings for all of the characters if read out of order.
Four stars. Entertaining and readable. The authors have included some recipes for sweet treats in the back of the book.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.