I swore off the Hannah Swensen mystery series by Joanne Fluke after the third installment, Blueberry Muffin Murder. I found everything about these novels to be cringe-worthy, from the patently obvious “mystery” solution to the god-awful dialogue, two-dimensional characters, and generally poor plot development.
But like a glutton at a buffet, I found myself going back for more even though I wasn’t really hungry for another helping of Hannah and friends. Since I’m able to borrow the book CDs from my library, I usually end up listening to them, even though I grit my teeth nearly every step of the way. That’s what happened with Lemon Meringue Pie Murder, the fourth — and thus far the worst — book of the series.
Plot summary (with possible spoilers): Hannah Swensen’s sometime boyfriend Norman Rhodes surprises everyone with the news that he has just purchased a home from fellow Lake Eden resident Rhonda Scharf. It’s an old farmhouse that belonged to Rhonda’s now deceased aunt, and Norman plans to tear the place down so he can build the dream house he and Hannah designed together for a contest. Hannah anxiously wonders if perhaps Norman wants to take their relationship to the next level since the 4-bedroom dream house is way too big for one person, but quickly puts those thoughts out of her mind to help Norman celebrate his purchase.
Rhonda, meanwhile, is also in a celebratory mood. With the money she’s getting from the sale, she’s going to take the dream vacation to Italy that she’s always wanted. She already has her trip booked, and will leave right after the Fourth of July weekend.
That was the plan, anyway, but everything changes when Hannah, Norman, and Delores go to the old house to remove some antiques that Delores plans to sell at her store. While checking out the basement, Delores discovers Rhonda’s dead body sticking out of a hastily dug grave in the earthen floor. The woman had obviously been murdered.
After first hemming and hawing for a bit, Hannah decides to jump in and investigate this murder too. She does so in a completely unofficial capacity, as neither Bill Todd nor Mike Kingston from the sheriff’s department really want her involved.
From there, the rest of the novel follows Hannah as she goes through her usual routine of trying to establish suspects and possible motives, asking questions, and generally nosing around in an effort to find the murderer. Along the way, readers get several new cookie and dessert recipes, which turn out to be the only saving grace of the book.
My Reaction: I actually finished Lemon Meringue Pie Murder several weeks ago, but couldn’t bring myself to write my review for fear of having it be little more than a rant about how bad this book was. Now that I’ve had a chance to settle down a bit, I can hopefully be a bit more coherent when outlining just a few of the reasons that this book SUCKS!
It’s hard to decide on a starting point here, so I’m simply going to talk about things as they occur to me. First of all, it was totally freaking obvious right from the start who the murderer was. This is the fourth Fluke book I’ve read, so I already know that all new characters are good bets as suspects because Fluke of course doesn’t want to kill off her main cast. In her last book, the killer turned out to be Hannah’s former classmate who told everyone he was making a fortune in online trading, but was really already bankrupt, giving him plenty of motive for the crime. Since the author only introduced three new characters in this novel — one of which ended up as the murder victim and another of which was mentally retarded — it didn’t take much detective work to figure out whodunit.
Another reason I couldn’t stand this book is that it’s just so hard to believe that Hannah would get so far in her investigations. Why is it that nobody has the sense to tell her to eff off when she starts butting into their business? Why do the other characters persist in answering questions about adultery and so forth when it’s just Hannah asking? God, I would love it if someone punched Hannah in the nose during one of these interrogations!
And what the hell do Bill and Mike do all day? How is it that Hannah is able to solve these crimes while Mike, this decorated detective from the “big city” can’t get beyond processing the scene? All Mike and Bill ever do is talk about lab results or whatever. Those two must be pretty damn stupid not to get any farther than that.
Overall, Lemon Meringue Pie Murder simply confirms what I already knew about the Hannah Swensen series: these books can only be enjoyed by the 13-and-under crowd. They’re just not sophisticated enough for anyone else.