Tamar Myers – Between a Wok and a Hard Place

The fifth book in the Pennsylvania Dutch Mysteries with Recipes series, published March 1998.



With murder you get egg roll.
Ever since her brand-new husband flew the coop, Magdalena Yoder, owner of the quaint PennDutch Inn, has had time to kill. And now the local Amish community really has a murder in its midst: an Asian tourist found strangled and run over by a horse and buggy. It isn’t a crime police chief Melvin Stolzfus can easily handle; after all, he was once kicked in the head by a bull he was trying to milk. But he’s smart enough to deputize Magdalena.
Soon Magdalena is off visiting the neatly kept farms of the Plain People in search of the truth. Although not an outsider, she’s about as welcome as a fox in a henhouse. Something dangerous is being concealed behind their dour faces and determination to protect their own. And for Magdalena, finding a killer may just put her between the rock of faith and a hard place called justice…


I did not like this one. It was kind of a rambling story, and I never got any clues, till the very end of the book.
On the personal side: Susannah and Melvin get back together, and Magdalena finds out that she is not married after all! Her beloved Pooky Bear Aaron Miller confesses that he is still married to another woman, and he is back in love with her, and wants to stay with her. Which means Magdalena is an Adulturess, and no longer a virgin. I don’t believe she will miss the wedding bed though.

I do have the rest of the series, and Tamar Myers is still writing more. I do hope the next ones will be better.

6 stars