∎ PDF Free Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth A PennsylvaniaDutch Mystery with Recipes Tamar Myers 9780451182968 Books

Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth A PennsylvaniaDutch Mystery with Recipes Tamar Myers 9780451182968 Books

Download As PDF : Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth A PennsylvaniaDutch Mystery with Recipes Tamar Myers 9780451182968 Books

Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth A PennsylvaniaDutch Mystery with Recipes Tamar Myers 9780451182968 Books

Light, humorous murder mystery told by Magdalena, a single Mennonite woman who runs a bed and breakfast while attempting to reign in her younger sister who has absolutely no sense of responsibility and certainly no work ethic. With a long waiting list, Magdalena gets to pick and choose who gets to stay at her Penn-Dutch Inn and on opening week of deer hunting season, is surprised to discover that the people picked for guests for the week kind of fudged on their applications a bit.

Tight fisted, sensible, smart, somewhat of a hypocrite and calm in an emergency, Magdalena speaks directly to the reader as we’re provided with a corpse right at the start and most of the book is back story on how we got there.

Humorous characters and situations, I found this to be both an interesting and easy read – probably not in keeping especially strongly with the Mennonite culture.


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Too Many Crooks Spoil the Broth A PennsylvaniaDutch Mystery with Recipes Tamar Myers 9780451182968 Books Reviews

It was subtitled, "An Amish Bed and Breakfast Mystery." It was unlike any Amish book I had ever read. The owner of the bed and breakfast was very rude and judgmental. Her sister was a slut. Neither displayed any Amish characteristics. The plot was good and held my attention, but especially in the last chapter, every other word was a swear word. I would not recommend this book to my friends.
This was a really great book to read. It's about a spinster Amish woman and her sister that has left the faith and they have inherited the big, family home from their deceased parents. They have turned the house into a bed and breakfast. Her old aunt is the cook and her uncle takes care of the animals and land. This book is about how 3 people turn up dead within a matter of a couple of days and how they handle it. There are several more books in the series. I want to get them all. I love them!
This is one of the first Mennonite mysteries I have purchased and I am finding a delightful read. I am an avid Amish Mystery/Suspense/Romance reader, but, I am quite enjoying the humor, suspense and colorful speech of the B&B owner Magdalena or Mags for short. Even though there are murders and hints of romance by Mags' Sister Susanna I must admit that I have laughed out loud more than once and am looking forward to reading Book 2. Great ending. Kudos to Tamar Myers for a well written and entertaining read!
Susannah's screaming at a corpse on a quilt in the opening scene was an effective capture. The plot time regression, backtracking from "murder-up-page-one," trailing events and road-forks which may have contributed to the murder, was a narrative technique of literary lace.

The quilt was Amish and it had been spread, somehow wrongly, across a bed in the PenDutch Inn. Magdalena's detailing the difference between a murdered corpse and a "normal" dead body was an intriguing way to surge depth and reality onto the stage.

As she will do throughout the series, Magdalena Yoder comes grumbling to the rescue. There's a lot to do to clean up a murder or two, not to mention catering to a full house of high brow guests paying hefty prices and expecting the best, even within Magda's ALPO ambiance. ALPO, of course, is the Amish Lifestyle Plan Option at the Inn, which avails guests of a trip into the cultural snootiness of choosing to clean their own rooms and common areas. My curiosity peaks to uncover how and why each guest decides to handle (or not) the broom. ALPO is such a deal for discriminating character nuance with a single sweep.

I enjoyed observing the evolution of Magda's narrative style in this pilot to such an auspicious, long-running series. I had to remind myself that at the point of writing and publishing this novel, Amish mysteries had not yet had the foundation which Tamar Myers brought to this amateur sleuth repertoire.

Speaking (not in vain) of the author's name, I loved the way this author's fictional character bad mouthed the author while elevating her husband, Jeff, dramatizing that Hernia, Pennsylvania Chief-of-Police, Jeff Myers's absence from the murder investigations left Magda in a solitary (except for an amorous octogenarian vet) lurch to carry the story and deal with detecting around Marvin Stoltzfus, Jeff's bumbling underling. A character satirizing the author is one among several techniques to establish intrigue which Tammy Myers (as Magda calls her) uses with panache. Of course Tammy and Jeff aren't story/reality bleed-ins precisely as author and spouse. They're given fictitious positions and cameo appearances within the plot as police chief and wife. All of this serves to smoothly bait & build reader curiosity into a Gordian Twist Collection which demands to be unwound, which promises and delivers high entertainment.

One of my favorite scenes in TOO MANY CROOKS had Susannah step up to the rug and defend her "honor" to Magda in a telling argument which beautifully exposed both sister's sides, in character "combat." I had expected Magda to continue to quilt herself into the design of feisty, yet virtuous, virgin heroine, with Susannah swirling around her maiden image as slovenly slut. But in the argument scene the slut slithers into her own integrity and points precisely to the soils on Magda's heavy skirts.

I enjoy the way Myers toys with the bright/dark balance within each character, including herself. No one gets a free ride outside the box of the PenDutch's sensitive, sagely satiric pen.

Above, I noted appreciating the narrative style evolution in this pilot, but didn't detail from what to what the style developed. Magda has a subtle but solid warmth toward humanity and life which likely arrives through Tamar's own generous and complex personality structure. Most often that warmth megaphones through bubbling sarcasm which, thankfully for my tastes, doesn't have the true edge of most pure and cutting, heavy satire. Which is why I would call this series light satire. Magda's snarly-ness in describing other characters foibles moves between moods of somewhat disguised caring warmth Vs a funny but edgy crispness which can seem cool and once in a while, caustic.

This variety of emotional temperature is what gives this series such mood-rich complexity, such depth under effervescent cover.

When the plot time caught up with the opening scene, I was impressed with the way Myers quilted scene one into the ongoing drama, by picking up a tight thread, repeating one sentence from the opening pages, then quickly paraphrasing the rest of the initiating stage, and moving forward from its solid foundation.

For me one of the most entertaining parts of the plot were the detailed references to finicky screeches of the eating demands and disappointments of various vegetarian venues Vs the carnivores, and more loosely-preferenced munchers who appreciated anything which flavored positively on their palates (I'd be in that wide-tongue group). Of course this situation allowed Freni and her relationship to Magda to root and develop nicely. And it carried through the culinary references with an intensity well able to satisfy the foodie fans of this type of munching mystery.

In conclusion I'll say that the very effective, humorous effervescence in this pilot was so successful in leavening the drama that it was easy for me to feel, while reading, that the story was, basically, light, quick-reading entertainment. But, it took only a few minutes of contemplation-after-read, recalling favorite scenes and schemes, to begin to see that this offering was a rich, complicated soup of great potential for satisfying nourishment of the balsamic type.

Which reminds me that the title was tied in nicely, quilting even that detail perfectly into place-of-plot, which is not always done in current, rapid-reading literature, which leaves me wondering, why THAT title?

Nothing left wondering here, except, if you had read this pilot prior to the publication of 13 or so sequels, you'd not be wondering if, but begging that Myers would cough up more and more PenDutch ambiance, to slide more cooks into the stew. That phenomenal publication success story indeed has a good (never) ending; Myers is still penning plush and posh.

A Reader who appreciates savory spice with bubbles and bits (of sensitive snarls).

Linda G. Shelnutt
Read this first book in the series for a Book club. Poorly written and plotted, the characters are cartoons. Ninety percent of the book is about the faking of life of Mennonites for the purpose of entertaining the guests at the B&B. And Memories of Mama is an excuse for everything.
Have read already a number of the books by this author thanks to the library as well as a friend who likes reading cozy mysteries. It's always nice making a trip back to Hernia, Pennsylvania and the crazy inhabitants of that town. Magdelena Hider runs a bed and breakfast that thanks to some good reviews has been hopping with business. But that business is threatened when a couple of murders occur on the premises. Not to mention the challenge of having both people who like to hunt and anti hunters on the same property. Not to mention dealing with the different dietary needs that many of the guests have. This is a very entertaining mystery series with some hilarious descriptions of some of the more interesting residents of Hermia. Love the description of Melvin in particular. For those who aren't normally into reading mysteries should check out this very entertaining and enjoyable mystery series. As I'm not a huge mystery reader but this is one series I've so far enjoyed.
Light, humorous murder mystery told by Magdalena, a single Mennonite woman who runs a bed and breakfast while attempting to reign in her younger sister who has absolutely no sense of responsibility and certainly no work ethic. With a long waiting list, Magdalena gets to pick and choose who gets to stay at her Penn-Dutch Inn and on opening week of deer hunting season, is surprised to discover that the people picked for guests for the week kind of fudged on their applications a bit.

Tight fisted, sensible, smart, somewhat of a hypocrite and calm in an emergency, Magdalena speaks directly to the reader as we’re provided with a corpse right at the start and most of the book is back story on how we got there.

Humorous characters and situations, I found this to be both an interesting and easy read – probably not in keeping especially strongly with the Mennonite culture.