Sowed to Death by Peg Cochran

Sowed to Death by Peg Cochran ISBN-13: 9780425282038 Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime Released: July 4, 2017

Source: Review copy from the publisher.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
The county fair is the highlight of the year for the small town of Lovett, Michigan especially for food-and-lifestyle blogger Shelby McDonald, who writes as the Farmer's Daughter. She's submitting jams and jellies she's created from the produce she grows at Love Blossom Farm in hopes of harvesting a blue ribbon.

But the townspeople get more than just the excitement of hayrides, tractor pulls, and cotton candy when Shelby's neighbor and volunteer fireman, Jake Taylor, extricates the body of Zeke Barnstable instead of a dummy during a demonstration of the Jaws of Life. The fact that Jake and Zeke were known to be at odds plants suspicion in the minds of the police. Shelby plows through the clues to weed out the true killer and save her friend.


My Review:
Sowed to Death is a cozy mystery. It's the second book in the series. You can understand this book without reading the previous one, and this novel didn't spoil the mystery in the previous book.

The mystery was a clue-based, puzzle mystery. The heroine asked questions, listened to gossip, and watched what was going on. She's generally a nice person, and no one was harmed by her methods of questioning. I strongly suspected whodunit by about halfway through and was certain by two-thirds of the way through. I found it a little curious that the heroine didn't pick up on it sooner. (The Murder She Wrote heroine sure would have.)

Minor annoyances: No one in their right mind would use a stallion when teaching a young child how to ride. Also, few farriers "make" horseshoes anymore (though they do use a hammer to shape the horseshoe and nail it on). These points weren't critical to the mystery.

There was no sex or bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting novel.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.


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