Noodle Shop #12
This is a fun, bouncy series, with a wonderful array of central characters. The heroine of the series is Lana Lee, the owner (along with her family) of a restaurant in Cleveland. The restaurant sits in Asia Village, and one of the businesses near Lana’s (as well as near to her heart), is a bookstore. When Lana is browsing one day the owner mentions that her employee has quit out of the blue and she’s in a panic about a huge upcoming author appearance. Lana offers to help, and the owner assigns her to be the author’s assistant (mainly monitoring the signing line and opening the books to the right page to be signed). Lana is also a big fan of the author’s and has just finished the book.
Lana is so delighted, she goes ahead and recruits her somewhat brash and slightly loud buddy Kimmy to help at the register, as Kimmy has her own shop in the market and is experienced at handling a crowd. As signing day dawns and Lana and Kimmy arrive at the mall they are shocked to see the number of people waiting to meet the author, and the bookstore owner is slightly overwhlemed. However, the team gets down to work, the author arrives, and the signing begins.
It goes well and the author patiently works her way through a long line despite feeling slightly faint in the middle of the event, but when the signing ends, disaster strikes, with the author being found dead in the mystery aisle. As Lana is the one to find her, and has also read her book – which describes to a T the manner of her own death – she’s pretty freaked out. Lana, her roommate Megan, Kimmy, and Lana’s boyfriend, Adam Trudeau – who also happens to be a cop – settle in to figure out what happened.
To Lana’s utter shock, Adam invites her to be a part of the investigation, and she happily agrees, though it makes her quite nervous when she listens in on an interrogation. There seem to be plenty of suspects, but the women and Adam eliminate them one by one, left with a seemingly insolvable puzzle.
Of course it’s not insolvable, but it does take some clever sleuthing and deductive reasoning on Lana’s part to unmask the killer. These books are so much fun because the characters are interesting and nicely quirky, but they are still supportive of each other. Adam is just a decent guy and while he gets annoyed by Lana’s and her friend’s involvement at times, he also appreciates it. Lana also has one of the cutest dogs in mystery fiction, Kikko the black pug.
The other standout of course is the setting, Cleveland being a fairly unusual one, as well as the gentle portrayal of the Asian community in Cleveland. As depicted by Chien it’s an incredibly supportive one. This book is one of the reasons I read and enjoy cozies. The people are interesting and nice to each other, they function in a recognizable environment, and the mysteries are clever. Lana isn’t jaded by her investigations, and she’s properly shocked at discovering a dead body. I can’t say you won’t be hungry as you read as the food described sounds delicious. All in all, there’s nothing quite so satisfying as a good cozy, and the sleuthing in this one is top notch. — Robin Agnew