Death Bakes a Pecan Pie: A Fresh Baked Mystery

In Washburn’s disappointing 11th Fresh Baked mystery (after 2017’s Baker’s Deadly Dozen), the cast and crew of a film company arrive in Weatherford, Tex., to make a movie called Fresh Baked Death based on a novel by Eve Turner, whose main character is modeled on her amateur sleuth friend, Phyllis Newsom. When director Lawrence Fremont, who has a history of harassment, turns up dead—apparently the victim of a doctored version of Phyllis’s famed pecan pie—leading lady Melissa Keller proposes that she and Phyllis team up to unmask the killer. Potential candidates include an Australian leading man with less than cordial relations with Melissa, a pair of squabbling writers, a producer, an assistant director, and a range of actors. The sleuths’ lack of engagement with the suspects and an obvious clue make fingering the perpetrator an easy task, although readers may enjoy spending time with Phyllis and her friends. (Oct.)