{"id":5892,"date":"2024-08-17T06:28:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-17T13:28:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=5892"},"modified":"2024-08-17T06:28:21","modified_gmt":"2024-08-17T13:28:21","slug":"leslie-budewitz-to-err-is-cumin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/leslie-budewitz-to-err-is-cumin\/","title":{"rendered":"Leslie Budewitz: To Err is Cumin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spice Shop #8<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I\u2019m a real fan of this series, two of the biggest reasons being the setting and the complexity of the characters.\u00a0 Set in Seattle\u2019s vivid Pike Place Market area, heroine Pepper Reece owns a spice shop.\u00a0 Pepper is in her 40\u2019s, divorced, and dating a fisherman who is away much of the time (fishing).\u00a0 At the moment she\u2019s helping to redecorate the house her parents have bought in the area and she spies the perfect wingback chair on the curb.\u00a0 Being a big city dweller she claims this piece of street treasure and gets an SUV owning buddy to come pick her, and the chair, up.\u00a0 When she takes a closer look at the lumpy seat she finds it\u2019s stuffed with cash.<\/p>\n

Pepper calls her ex, a bike cop, who of course tells her to turn it into the police, which she does.\u00a0 She\u2019s no fool, though \u2013 she keeps the chair, and she and her mother\u2019s decorator make plans.\u00a0 Being Pepper \u2013 a bit nosy, and very determined to do the right thing \u2013 she then tries to find the owner of the chair who seems to have vanished.\u00a0 When a death follows, seemingly related to the missing chair owner, Pepper\u2019s investigation amps up.<\/p>\n

Much of Pepper\u2019s sleuthing is done in the market area, questioning people she knows.\u00a0 This of course is the hallmark of the amateur sleuth, and very neatly, Budewitz manages not to stretch credulity too far. You can believe Pepper might ask around \u2013 the death, after all, is the talk of the market.<\/p>\n

What makes this book special is the portrayal not just of Pepper\u2019s Spice Shop but of her staff, her fellow merchants and restaurant owners, and simply the folks she meets along the way.\u00a0 The antiques shop she includes is especially vivid.\u00a0 It\u2019s also the character development that make the books a standout.\u00a0 Not only the portrayal of Pepper herself, but the portrayal of the missing woman, Talia, is fully fleshed out and interesting.\u00a0 You\u2019re hoping she\u2019s OK and rooting for Pepper to find her.<\/p>\n

The answer, when it comes, it suitably tricky and well set up.\u00a0 These are gentle books with an attitude of appreciation of what\u2019s good in life (for Pepper, what\u2019s good often includes delicious sounding baked goods), and the food is to die for.\u00a0 Much like her literary ancestress Carolyn Hart, Budewitz also shouts out to various cozy authors throughout the novel, including V. M. Burns and Krista Davis.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for another foodie mystery, she\u2019s given you a place to start, after you\u2019re finished gobbling up this one.\u00a0 I very much look forward to another outing with Pepper.\u00a0— Robin Agnew<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spice Shop #8 I\u2019m a real fan of this series, two of the biggest reasons being the setting and the complexity of the characters.\u00a0 Set in Seattle\u2019s vivid Pike Place Market area, heroine Pepper Reece owns a spice shop.\u00a0 Pepper is in her 40\u2019s, divorced, and dating a fisherman who is away much of the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1800,1265,1269,1799,1276,1797,143,1267,1796],"class_list":["post-5892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-antique-chair","tag-leslie-budewitz","tag-pepper-reece","tag-pike-place-market","tag-robin-agnew","tag-seattle","tag-seventh-street-books","tag-spice-shop","tag-to-err-is-cumin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5892"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5893,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5892\/revisions\/5893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}