Riley Adams - Hickory Smoked Homicide

The third book in the Memphis Barbeque Mystery series, published November 1, 2011.
Genre: cozy mystery with Southern recipes
Cover: good



Welcome to Aunt Pat's barbeque restaurant - family run and located in the heart of Memphis, Tennessee. Named in honor of Lulu Taylor's great-aunt, the restaurant on Beale Street dishes out the best barbeque has to offer. But sometimes even the best food can bring out the worst in people…
Since she runs the hottest barbeque joint in town, Lulu Taylor knows pretty much everyone in Memphis who loves their ribs sweet and their corn bread spicy. But one person she'd rather not know is Tristan Pembroke, a snooty pageant coach with a mean streak longer than the line outside Aunt Pat's. When she finds Tristan's dead body stuffed in a closet at a party, the police are suspicious, especially since Lulu's developed a taste for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught in a situation stickier than molasses, Lulu must clear her name, or risk getting fried…


I do love cozy mysteries, and I love them even more in a Southern setting. Cozies are often fun and light with really quirky and eccentric characters in them. And I tend to pick those with a food theme, even though I will never try to make a recipe out of them.
This series has an older heroine, Lulu is a grandmother, her son is the restaurant's cook, her daughter-in-law Sara is the waitress, and she is also a great painter and artist. Lulu has two grand daughters, the bookish Ella Mae, and Coco, who likes to perform in beauty pageants. Lulu doesn't know anything about the pageant life, but she will have to learn fast if she wants to solve this new murder case she stumbled upon, and if she wants to clear Sara's name.
She really does not have time for this unwanted suitor her son Ben has set her up with ! Luckily, her friend Cherry loves investigating with her, and together they do talk their way into people's confidences. Apparently, lots of people hated Tristan, and with a reason!


I did miss Ella Mae in this book though, she helped her grandmother with the investigation in the previous two books, and she is a fun and very smart child. I still do have trouble with the fact that Tristan is a woman's name in this book, as I have only known it as a man's name (Tristan and Isolde for instance). American readers, is this a common female name in America?

It was fun to learn a bit more about the backstabbing world of children's beauty pageants though, and I do enjoy Lulu and her crazy friends a lot. I would certainly love to visit Memphis one day and eat in a restaurant like Aunt Pat's, the food sounds delicious.

O yeah, the ending was really surprising, I never did see that coming, nor did I guess the real killer.

8 stars.

© 2015 Reviews by Aurian