One Bad Apple
Series: An Orchard Mystery Book #1
Author: Sheila Connolly
Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime
Page Count: 262
My Rating:
Book Summary
There’s a killer in the orchard, and he’s rotten to the core.
Meg Corey has come to the quaint New England town of Granford, Massachusetts, to sell her mother’s old colonial home and apple orchard. Instead, she becomes embroiled in development plans that include her land, and her former flame from Boston. When he’s found dead in the new septic tank on her property, the police immediately suspect Meg, whose only ally in town is the plumber Seth Chapin. Together, they’ll have to peel back the layers of secrecy that surround the deal in order to find the real murderer, and save the orchard.
More Facts for Readers about our Sleuth:
Main Sleuth: Meg Corey
Physical Description: White female, Brunette, Brown eyes, family from Massachusetts
Business: Re-starting up an apple orchard business (formerly in banking)
Country: Granford, Massachusetts (moved from Boston)
Pet: None
Love Interest: Possibly Seth Chapin, a white male plumber, blond, hazel eyes
Family: A mother who we haven’t met yet because she lives further away
Diversity? Not so much in this book. It’s set in a small, kind of isolated town, where most folks are related to each other. Most of the characters are white (non-hispanic). There is however a university close to the town, and talk of developers coming into the area, which leads me to think we’ll have more diverse characters throughout the series as new students and employees come to the area.
My Review
Things start off juicy in “One Bad Apple”, book 1 in the Orchard Mystery series by Sheila Connolly! I was drawn to this book because I adore cover illustrations by Mary Ann Lasher and because I live not far from an apple orchard (that I worked at as a teenager). Main sleuth Meg Corey finds herself renovating a house atop a 15-acre apple orchard in Massachusetts, the absolute last place she expects to run into her ex-boyfriend – dead, in her septic tank.
What I love about this book is that Sheila Connolly has found a lot of interesting ways to give a ton of detail while always moving the story forward. Nothing feels frivolous or out of place; everything in the story has a purpose. Meg Corey is a tough chick, who is self-assured, and taking charge of her life and her situation. I actually felt like I was learning things alongside her and I was part of the process, unlike in other cozies where you suddenly feel like there was a jump-cut to certain conclusions. There’s a really well-rounded thought process that happens throughout this book. Trust me, you’re not going to find yourself screaming into your pillow with frustration as to “why the sleuth is being so obtuse”, Meg thinks like us. You’ll like this book!
