A Catered St. Patrick's Day

OK, so admittedly I picked this book just to check off a specific calendar of crime reading challenge : St. Patrick's Day.  When I googled what books specifically would fulfill this challenge, I selected this one from our library and it has been laugh out loud funny.  A Catered St. Patrick's Day, by Isis Crawford is number eight in a *seventeen book (and counting) series, so I feel a bit like I am missing some back story.  But it was pretty easy to get to know Bernie and Libby (the two bakery sisters now turned amateur sleuths), and their dad Sean (a retired cop).  Speaking of their dad, I am pretty sure this a LOT more to Sean's story, but I am not sure if I missed it in books one through seven or if the author is slowly developing it as she goes.  

First of all, I want to know these characters in real life.  I want to plop myself down in their bakery "A Little Taste of Heaven" in the cold month of March in New York, and sip a piping hot cup of coffee while nibbling away at their endless yummies and ease dropping on all of their conversations.  

A local jerk, aka Mike Sweeney, is murdered and from the beginning it is not hard to see why he was on someone's hit list, the harder part is figuring out who didn't have it in for this guy.  The blame lands on the shoulders of an equally jerky guy and the sisters (and their dad) are enlisted to help find the real killer.  

Along the way we meet the supporting cast of characters, Bernie's boyfriend bartender Brandon, meddling and over the top aunt Bree (she is the aunt of a suspect, not of the sisters), Libby's boyfriend Marvin who works at the funeral home and drives around in a hearse!  And we cannot forget the group of buddies that call themselves the "Corned Beef and Cabbage Club", and finally I think the van deserves an honorable mention.  The catering van the girls use to drive around town and pursue leads in is on its last leg so to speak, its top speed is forty miles an hour!  HA!

I (at some point) want to go back and start at the beginning and read this series.  This would make the perfect Hallmark Movies & Mysteries series.  At this point my TBR pike is growing by leaps and bounds as I read new (to me) authors and genres.  

*Book seventeen is due out in June of this year.