A Cup of Flour, A Pinch of Death by Valerie Burns (Baker Street Mystery #3) * * * *
A Cup of Flour, A Pinch of Death is the third book in the Baker Street Mystery series, and I gave it four stars. This book also brings the larger mystery that has been developing since the first book to a conclusion, which I found very satisfying. There is a fourth book in the series, so I’m curious about where the story goes from here now that this particular arc has been wrapped up.
We are back in New Bison, Michigan, with Maddy Montgomery, who has now settled much more comfortably into the life she unexpectedly inherited along with Baby Cakes bakery and Baby, her enormous English mastiff. Most of the characters from the previous books return, along with a few new ones, and we also get more of Maddy’s father in this installment. I really like her father, so I was happy to see more of him and more of their relationship.
The murder this time also brings Maddy’s old life crashing directly into her new one. Brandy Denton, the influencer who was once Maddy’s friend and then stole her fiancé, turns up in New Bison. Brandy is a thoroughly unlikable character, and after she and Maddy have a very public confrontation, Brandy ends up dead in the freezer at Baby Cakes. Naturally, that makes Maddy a rather convenient suspect.
What I continue to love about this series is how tightly constructed these books are. The plots never feel overworked. There is no unnecessary padding and no enormous collection of interchangeable side characters whom I have to keep mentally sorting out. Everyone is distinctive enough that I remember who they are, what their relationship is to Maddy, and why they matter. Everything introduced into the mystery has a purpose, and the different pieces fit together without the story becoming unnecessarily complicated. For a cozy mystery, that makes such a difference.
It also means these books are not overly long. I have read mysteries where it feels as though the central plot could have been told in half the number of pages, but that is never really a problem here. Valerie Burns gets in, tells the story she wants to tell, lets us spend some time with the characters, solves the murder, and gets out. The books feel complete without feeling bloated.
And then, of course, there is Baby.
Baby is an English mastiff and an endless source of comic relief, but one of the things I particularly appreciate is that he isn’t just a walking dog joke inserted whenever the book needs something cute. He is genuinely part of Maddy’s life and part of the story. The same is true of his canine friend Daisy. The dogs have personalities, relationships, and actual roles within this little community. Baby can be ridiculous, and frequently is, but he belongs in the story rather than being an accessory to it.
That sense of community is probably the strongest part of the series for me. By this third book, I genuinely feel as though I know these people. I like them. I’m happy to see them again. New Bison has become one of those fictional places where I could happily move in, hang around Baby Cakes, spend time with the Baker Street Irregulars, and obviously make friends with Baby. There is a warmth to the series that makes the “cozy” part of cozy mystery actually mean something.
This book also finally resolves the larger mystery that has been developing across the first three books, and I was very happy with the conclusion. I had already guessed the identity of the main villain in book two, and I think I may even have started suspecting them in the first book, but that didn’t bother me at all. In fact, I generally see that as a good thing in a mystery.
A mystery should be possible to solve.
If I can work out what is happening from the clues the author has given me, that means those clues were actually there. I much prefer that to mysteries that preserve their big reveal by withholding the crucial piece of information until the last possible moment. If the detective suddenly reveals a fact that the reader could never have known and that fact solves the entire case, I don’t consider that particularly clever. It just means I was never given a fair chance to solve it. Here, the answer made sense because the groundwork had already been laid.
So while A Cup of Flour, A Pinch of Death wasn’t a five-star, absolutely extraordinary read for me, it was a very good cozy mystery and exactly the kind of experience I want from this genre. The mystery is concise and solvable, the humor works, the characters are memorable, the dogs are wonderful, and the larger story that began in book one receives a satisfying conclusion.
Most importantly, after three books, New Bison no longer feels like somewhere I’m visiting for another murder mystery. It feels like somewhere I’m going back to see my friends.
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