Feel the Bern: A Bernie Sanders Mystery (with Recipes)

Iconoclastic Vermont senator Bernie Sanders turns amateur sleuth in this amusing series launch from bestseller Shaffer (the Obama Biden mysteries). Crash Robertson, a 23-year-old Vermont native interning for Sanders, scores a plum assignment to escort her boss to her hometown, Eagle Creek, where he’s been tapped as grand marshal of the Champ Days harvest festival parade. Crash welcomes the chance to see her mother, proprietor of the town’s only store and bed-and-breakfast, but takes to heart the admonition from the D.C. office not to let Bernie out of sight, lest he wander off for impromptu, schedule-disrupting discussions with constituents. As the politicos arrive, the body of widely disliked banker Ferman Fletcher is found floating in Lake Champlain, and whodunit speculations start flying. Is it financially strapped hippie maple syrup maker Doc McGilliam, or swaggering tech billionaire Jagger Wardlow, who’s buying up maple farms in the area, flouting Vermont’s mellow, modest mores? The police investigate, and after Bernie gets the detective bug, Crash must keep him out of trouble. Shaffer cheerfully ties sprawling plot threads together with clever nods to Vermont and its Socialist senator. Readers will be eager for more. (Dec.)