A Deadly Inside Scoop by Abby Collette Narrator: Chandra Skyye
Series: Ice Cream Parlor Mystery #1
Published by Tantor Audio on May 12, 2020
Source: Purchased
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Length: 9 hrs 52 mins
Pages: 375
Format: Audiobook
Purchase at Bookshop.org or Audible
Add on Goodreads
This book kicks off a charming cozy mystery series set in an ice cream shop--with a fabulous cast of quirky characters. Recent MBA grad Bronwyn Crewse has just taken over her family's ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and she's going back to basics. Win is renovating Crewse Creamery to restore its former glory, and filling the menu with delicious, homemade ice cream flavors--many from her grandmother's original recipes. But unexpected construction delays mean she misses the summer season, and the shop has a literal cold opening: the day she opens her doors an early first snow descends on the village and keeps the customers away. To make matters worse, that evening, Win finds a body in the snow, and it turns out the dead man was a grifter with an old feud with the Crewse family. Soon, Win's father is implicated in his death. It's not easy to juggle a new-to-her business while solving a crime, but Win is determined to do it. With the help of her quirky best friends and her tight-knit family, she'll catch the ice cold killer before she has a meltdown . . .
A Deadly Inside Scoop is the first book in the Ice Cream Parlor mystery series. Bronwyn “Win” has taken over the family ice cream shop, and she is off to a rocky start with the weather and then finding a body in the snow. It starts to look like her father is a suspect. Win and her friend Maisie team up and do some amateur sleuthing to find out who killed Stephen Bayard, a con man who has a past with Win’s family.
I love the ice cream shop and the flavors Win comes up with. I also like that it’s set in my home state. I’ve never been to Chagrin Falls, but it sounds like a cute town. I liked Win and her family well enough, especially her grandfather. Win has two best friends, Riya and Maisie. Riya has quite a temper and Maisie is a little ditzy and maybe watches too many mystery tv shows. They are both mostly quirky which is fun, but they were more caricatures than real people. And they all acted a little young to me, for being women in their late twenties with jobs and responsibilities.
The mystery, which really gets going in the second half of the book was put together well. There were several suspects and enough clues sprinkled around. Win and Maisie do solve the case, but maybe more through luck than investigating. And of course, Win almost gets hurt in the process. At least she doesn’t have a cop boyfriend, although there is a potential love interest who is a former cop, now law professor.
A Deadly Inside Scoop was fun, but not great. I do agree with Win that ice cream is good no matter the weather, even if it’s winter in Ohio.
About Abby Collette
Wall Street Journal bestselling author Abby Collette loves a good mystery. She was born and raised in Cleveland, and it’s a mystery even to her why she hasn’t yet moved to a warmer place. As Abby Collette, she is the author of the Ice Cream Parlor Mystery series, about a millennial MBA-holding granddaughter running a family-owned ice cream shop in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and the Books & Biscuits Mystery series, starring a set of fraternal twins who reunite and open a bookstore and soul food café. Writing as Abby L. Vandiver, she is the author of the Logan Dickerson Mysteries, featuring a second-generation archaeologist and a nonagenarian, as well as the Romaine Wilder Mysteries, pairing an East Texas medical examiner and her feisty, funeral-home-owning auntie as sleuths. Abby spends her time writing, facilitating writing workshops at local libraries, and hanging out with her grandchildren, each of whom are her favorite.
Well, sometimes it takes more than one book to set up all the characters; however, I really dislike ditzy recurring characters so I hope the protagonist’s friends settle into supportive roles. The ice cream setting sound appealing although I am not a big fan of cozy mysteries.
I haven’t decided whether to bother picking up #2 or not.