For fans of:  Laura Childs

When Meredith Vance asks cheese shop owner Charlotte Bessette to cater the fundraiser she's throwing at the old abandoned Ziegler Winery, Charlotte's more than a little apprehensive.  After all, the winery has been boarded up since a nasty murder-suicide took place there in the 1950s, and just thinking about the place gives Charlotte the heebie-jeebies.  But Meredith’s enthusiasm is contagious, and the fundraiser is for a good cause (to help convert the winery into the town’s first college), so Charlotte quickly acquiesces and takes the job.

The night of the fundraiser arrives, and at first, Charlotte feels silly for having had reservations about the old place; the grounds are gorgeous, and the building is like something out of a fairy tale – a mock castle, complete with spires, towers, sparkling chandeliers, and winding staircases.  But then an art student is found dead in the basement, apparently strangled to death with Meredith’s niece Quinn’s scarf.  The fundraiser comes to an abrupt end, Quinn is arrested, and it looks like Meredith’s plans for the winery are doomed.  Charlotte knows Quinn isn’t guilty, though, and launches an investigation of her own.  Can Charlotte catch the real killer, thereby exonerating Quinn and helping Meredith’s dreams become a reality?

Lost and Fondue is the second in Avery Aames Cheese Shop Mystery series.  I had high hopes for this book; I love mysteries, I love cheese, and Aames is fresh off an Agatha win for her series debut, The Long Quiche Goodbye.  Unfortunately, however, I found the pace plodding, the prose florid, and the mystery convoluted and confusing, with too few clues and viable suspects and too many ridiculous props.

The cast is large and unwieldy, making it incredibly difficult to keep track of who's who, and none of the characters quite ring true.  From Charlotte on down to the most minor of murder suspects, all are overly theatrical and seem prone to frequent flights of fancy or fits of histrionics.  All actions and emotions are grossly exaggerated; people are constantly shaking or shuddering, tearing or racing past each other, poking each other in the chest (who actually does that?), or dancing to each other's sides.  The dialogue reads quite naturally, but is inevitably ruined by bizarre speech attributions ("'Winona Westerson,' she said with perfect operatic pitch.").  Add to all of this the fact that practically every character in this small Ohio town has a weird name – Edsel, Bozz, Harker, Philby, Freckles, Ipo, the Cube (and I could go on) – and you’re left with a cast of caricatures in whom it’s incredibly difficult to become emotionally invested.

Aames does have a talent for creating set pieces.  In the cheese shop, she’s created a place I could see myself happily passing many an afternoon – a warm, cozy, intimate space stocked to the gills with fine wine, delectable cheeses, and friendly people, and the abandoned winery is like something straight out of a gothic horror novel.  She also writes about food – cheese, in particular – with great passion.  Hardly a chapter passes that doesn’t make your mouth water or your stomach growl, and I’m sure it won’t be long before I try the recipes included at the end of the book.

In sum, Lost and Fondue is a decent book that could have been a great book had it been subject to some judicious editing.  The bones of a good mystery are there; it’s just hard to see them through all of the hand-waving and flowery writing.

~ Kat