Scan barcode
theavidreaderandbibliophile's review against another edition
5.0
Farmed and Dangerous by Edith Maxwell is the third book in the Local Foods Mystery series. Cameron Flaherty is running Attic Hill Farm (took it over from her Uncle Albert) and trying to make a go of it during the winter. She has established hoop houses and is growing greens in them for her customers. Cameron has a chance to get a contract with Moran Manor to provide produce during the summer. Cameron’s Uncle Albert lives at Moran Manor and Cameron visits him frequently.
Cameron is on a date with Detective Pete Pappas when he gets called to a death at Moran Manor. Beverly Montgomery is dead (Cameron has had problems with her in the past when Beverly still lived at her farm). Beverly was not a popular person. She frequently rubbed people the wrong way especially her caregiver, Oscar. Her daughter, Ginger, wanted the farm for real estate development, but Beverly wanted it to be kept a farm. In order for Pete to investigate the case, he has to distance himself from Cameron (her food might have poisoned Beverly). The next day Miss Lacey, who also lives at Moran Manor, dies. What is going on?
Cameron sets out to solve the case and clear her name. She cannot afford to have her name nor the farm’s associated with these deaths. When Uncle Albert is found on the floor in his room with a head wound, Cameron is determined to get answers. I was thoroughly delighted with Farmed and Dangerous. Another great addition to the Local Foods Mystery series. I give Farmed and Dangerous 5 out of 5 stars. Farmed and Dangerous had great characters, a good mystery with twists, interesting information about growing vegetables and herbs in winter, and a little romance. What more can a reader ask for in a cozy mystery! Farmed and Dangerous can easily be read without reading the first two books in the series.
I received a complimentary copy of Farmed and Dangerous by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The review and opinions expressed are strictly my own.
http://bibliophileandavidreader.blogspot.com/2015/05/farmed-and-dangerous.html
Cameron is on a date with Detective Pete Pappas when he gets called to a death at Moran Manor. Beverly Montgomery is dead (Cameron has had problems with her in the past when Beverly still lived at her farm). Beverly was not a popular person. She frequently rubbed people the wrong way especially her caregiver, Oscar. Her daughter, Ginger, wanted the farm for real estate development, but Beverly wanted it to be kept a farm. In order for Pete to investigate the case, he has to distance himself from Cameron (her food might have poisoned Beverly). The next day Miss Lacey, who also lives at Moran Manor, dies. What is going on?
Cameron sets out to solve the case and clear her name. She cannot afford to have her name nor the farm’s associated with these deaths. When Uncle Albert is found on the floor in his room with a head wound, Cameron is determined to get answers. I was thoroughly delighted with Farmed and Dangerous. Another great addition to the Local Foods Mystery series. I give Farmed and Dangerous 5 out of 5 stars. Farmed and Dangerous had great characters, a good mystery with twists, interesting information about growing vegetables and herbs in winter, and a little romance. What more can a reader ask for in a cozy mystery! Farmed and Dangerous can easily be read without reading the first two books in the series.
I received a complimentary copy of Farmed and Dangerous by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. The review and opinions expressed are strictly my own.
http://bibliophileandavidreader.blogspot.com/2015/05/farmed-and-dangerous.html
thisbookishcat's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
3.0
Edited (because it was the middle of the night when I first wrote this up): This is one of your typical, fluffy murder mysteries, but without the fluidity of the ones you might normally read. The author has clearly spent a lot of time farming organically, but has no idea how to make that interesting and relevant to the plot. It felt like a lot of the time the farming was used as filler to pass the days as other, more interesting things, were happening in this town; that's not to say that farming doesn't take up a lot of your time, because it does, but she spent an awful lot of time away from home with in total, not a whole lot happening.
A big note of concern for me was the amount of alcohol our main character drank before getting behind the wheel of a vehicle, and on more than one occasion. The way this book flows and is written doesn't offer a understanding of the amount of time that passes between the events, so it often seems like the character would have a drink and within the half hour be behind the wheel of a car. I'm someone who likes a drink every once in a while, but with the time that seems to have passed, it feels more like we should be concerned for the mental health of this character than we should be nodding and going along with it all.
Last major note about this was that the author tried too hard to make this small down well-outside of Boston seem like it had the cultural diversity of somewhere like New York. While it is entirely possible for this to happen, especially in today's more modern age, I feel the author was a bit too heavy-handed with making sure that the book oozed with obvious diversity. It would have flowed a lot better if she treated all characters, no matter their background, as equals when it came to introducing them. Instead of focusing on where characters, or their parents, came from, it would have been more interesting to learn about their personality traits, or something quirky about them as people, not as a cultural group. That being said, there was a touch in there about an Eritrean man volunteering to help teach Eritrean children English so they could acclimate to America more smoothly and I thought that was a wonderful show of character from this particular book character.
Overall I felt that the main part of the story was entertaining, but there was so much filler and nonsense in the book that didn't need to be there. If you're bored and looking for a book in this genre then you may want to read it, otherwise I'd recommend spending your time on something else.
A big note of concern for me was the amount of alcohol our main character drank before getting behind the wheel of a vehicle, and on more than one occasion. The way this book flows and is written doesn't offer a understanding of the amount of time that passes between the events, so it often seems like the character would have a drink and within the half hour be behind the wheel of a car. I'm someone who likes a drink every once in a while, but with the time that seems to have passed, it feels more like we should be concerned for the mental health of this character than we should be nodding and going along with it all.
Last major note about this was that the author tried too hard to make this small down well-outside of Boston seem like it had the cultural diversity of somewhere like New York. While it is entirely possible for this to happen, especially in today's more modern age, I feel the author was a bit too heavy-handed with making sure that the book oozed with obvious diversity. It would have flowed a lot better if she treated all characters, no matter their background, as equals when it came to introducing them. Instead of focusing on where characters, or their parents, came from, it would have been more interesting to learn about their personality traits, or something quirky about them as people, not as a cultural group. That being said, there was a touch in there about an Eritrean man volunteering to help teach Eritrean children English so they could acclimate to America more smoothly and I thought that was a wonderful show of character from this particular book character.
Overall I felt that the main part of the story was entertaining, but there was so much filler and nonsense in the book that didn't need to be there. If you're bored and looking for a book in this genre then you may want to read it, otherwise I'd recommend spending your time on something else.
chriswolak's review
4.0
I liked the characters and the plot, but the pacing was slow for my tastes (I tend to read edgier mystery/thrillers so it may just be what I'm used to). Will read more in this series.
More...