Ms. Barbieri has taken a different direction from her series about a college professor and instead pens a whodunit that will have you guessing almost to the end. Maeve Conlon is a divorced mother of two who is struggling to keep her bakery afloat, and take care of her family at the same time. Her two teenage daughters continually pull her in different directions: Rebecca is the “good girl” who expects her mother to attend every one of her soccer games, and Heather is constantly testing boundaries with her “bad girl” behavior. Maeve’s father, Jack, struggles with Alzheimer’s and lives in a nearby assisted living facility, from which he constanly escapes from to take strolls down by the river. But the question of the day is: who killed Sean Donovan, a cousin of Maeve’s who bullied her throughout her childhood. Add in a few detectives, and some humor and you have the perfect mystery. Recommended for mystery fans who don’t enjoy a lot of blood and guts.
