Hannah walked closer, peered inside, and made a face. It was one of the lemon pies she’d baked on Friday. Only one piece had been eaten and the rest was crawling with an endless line of small black ants that were industriously carting away the sweet pastry. ‘You’re right, Mother. This pie is ant fodder. I’ll dump it in the garbage.’”
Oh no. Hannah doesn’t know it yet, but this scene from the Lemon Meringue Pie Murder is a vital clue that someone has been killed. Partially-eaten dessert remains always indicate murder in Joanne Fluke’s humour-filled easy-reading mysteries featuring bakery-owner Hannah Swensen and the small town of Lake Eden, Minnesota.
Hannah is a know-it-all who constantly diets, hates exercise, spoils her cat and runs around doing errands all the time. Despite such a full life in which she’s constantly getting up at five a.m. and then cooking at 11 p.m. for various friends and family members, everyone trusts her to capably solve the remarkably-high number of murders that take place in her small northern town.
The light-weight stories don’t harp much on violence or suspense and instead feature the day-to-day struggles of a red-headed plump woman running a small business, trying to choose between two suitors and solving mysteries all at once. Known as “cozy” mysteries, these stories can be quickly and easily read in an easy chair without causing too much emotion, other than a need to perhaps visit some of the featured locales.
After 2008, Kensington changed the size of the Hannah Swensen books, so the first eleven books in the series were easier to hold than the later ones.
Other than that though, they definitely fit within the cozy genre. The scenery is entirely captivating, as are the characters. A few nasty characters appear on occasion as well, but happily, most of them get murdered off eventually.
Most of the Fluke’s focus is on characters anyone can love. I enjoyed meeting Hannah’s mother, her two sisters, her partner, the dentist, the doctor, the police, the mayor and all the other community members who appear over and over again throughout seventeen different books so far. (Fluke began writing romances in 2010 and Hannah appears in one called Sugar and Spice, but I haven’t included it in this count.)
Despite the crucial dessert destruction near the beginning of every book, I always crave sweets while reading these mysteries. Perhaps that’s because every novel contains several delicious-sounding scenes about food. There are also recipes for cookies, cakes and pastries in every one, including the title dessert. You can’t help but be encouraged to experiment in the kitchen, perhaps pausing to read while waiting for the yummy treats to finish baking.
Like her characters, Fluke enjoys her cookies super sweet, but her recipes can be easily modified for denser tastes or to meet the needs of various allergy sufferers. Cookies don’t require a careful measuring hand as long as you keep the balance between wet and dry ingredients stable.
For a less sweet cookie, don’t bother with icing and remove from a quarter to half a cup of sugar from each batch. Or rather than using white sugar, consider beet sugar, brown sucranet, maple syrup or agave.
Replace almost half of the flour in each recipe with whole wheat for people without allergies. For gluten free goodies, add two teaspoons of agar or guar gum and replace whole wheat flour with quinoa and regular white with brown rice flour. More variations can be had by replacing some of the brown rice flour with almond, tapioca, potato, garbanzo, flax meal, etc.
If you have vegans or other allergy-prone types in your family, replace each egg with with half a cup applesauce or pumpkin mash. Many of the recipes taste much better if at least half the eggs are replaced this way.
I’ve modified lots of Fluke’s recipes to great results. My favourites are the chocolate chip crunches, black and whites and the decadent fudge on top of shortbread bars that Fluke calls Chocolate Highlander but which my family calls “harvester cookies.”
To get a copy of a monthly featured recipe to try for yourself or for summaries of all the Hannah Swensen mysteries written by Fluke so far, check out her website at http://www.murdershebaked.com/.
Books in the series include:
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Murder, 2001
- Strawberry Shortcake Murder, 2001
- Blueberry Muffin Murder, 2002
- Lemon Meringue Pie Murder, 2003
- Fudge Cupcake Murder, 2004
- Sugar Cookie Murder, 2004
- Peach Cobbler Murder, 2005
- Cherry Cheesecake Murder, 2006
- Key Lime Pie Murder, 2007
- Candy Cane Murder, 2007
- Carrot Cake Murder, 2008
- Cream Puff Murder, 2009
- Plum Pudding Murder, 2009
- Gingerbread Cookie Mystery, 2010
- Apple Turnover Murder, 2010
- Devil’s Food Cake Murder, 2011
- Cinnamon Roll Murder, 2012
The next one, the Red Velvet Cupcake Murder will be published in February 2013.
