Death, Lies, and Apple Pie

by Valerie S. Malmont

Book Overview

Amateur sleuth, Tori Miracle, revisits Lickin Creek in Amish country and finds the small Pennsylvania town and its eccentric residents awash with madness, mayhem - and murder. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0440226341
• ISBN13: 9780440226345
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Dell
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Turning Pages, Right or Wrong. Apple Pie & Mud in Your Eye.

DEATH, LIES, AND APPLE PIES was set in Pennsylvania Dutch country, but the Amish culture did not play a major role in the small town shenanigans of Lickin Creek. This rural Americana features Irish immigration more than Germanic. Though the town's setting, ambiance, and warm/feisty residents were fetching, I was captured more readily by the opening scenes of Tori Miracle greeting her day with a left-over, cold pizza slice and a fizzed out Coke in her funky-and-dumpy rather than cozy-and-classic New York 4th floor walk up. Of course I could easily identify with an author far below the limelight of her career phases as she got herself through a quiet book signing at a nearby bookstore. (Typically, those events are attended by honest-to-goodness book buyer/readers only when the author is at a Sue Grafton level, or when the author has promised her firstborn to an ad agency.) The varied settings, plot, characters, and relationships perked along smashingly, with entertaining tiny twists building methodically to bigger ones. The mystery itself was interestingly convoluted, with 3 murders intertwined and the complex culmination containing a multiplicity of surprises, all of which were perfectly set and matched. I enjoyed the way Malmont highlighted the Norman Rockwell type brilliance in her small-town ambiance, yet interjected dimming flickers of the sunlight, some of which were humorous, others chilling, giving the effect of an endearing balance between the idyllic and the real. The villain-ized political agenda was the (at its peak when this novel was published) popular environmentalism trashing of economic factors related to the Industrial underpinnings of the area (realistic Capitalistic survival needs equated to greed, elevated to evil). The political theme tested my ability to enjoy this novel on its own merits, when the good/bad guy parameters hit too close to home with an uncannily reversed, parallel situation which diminished the robust industrial economy of my small hometown area in Colorado, and forced my husband and I to temporarily relocate to a different part of our State (a 5 hour drive from family history properties) to earn a living. Being on the inside of the situation then, I knew beyond doubt that the honest Vs the unscrupulously self-serving camps were somewhat switched from this story's approach. Possibly the only reason murders didn't collect in my reality then was because the good guys were hard working laborers of integrity, and the bad guys were skilled mostly at media maneuvering (and used an activist name strangely similar to "CANLICK"). Instead of being the delightfully contrary true heroes, as Greta and gang were developed to be in this novel, the activists in my town's case were media-maneuvering, self-righteous bullies, mostly non-native to our area. I don't know if I'm happy or sad to say that I was somewhat able to detach from personal economic forces, beyond beliefs of right and wrong, cause and effect, a

Terrific!

I love Valerie Malmont's Tori Miracle books. The town of Lickin Creek is vividly painted. Its citizens can be a bit eccentric, but not so over-the-top that they become unbelievable, and they constantly remind Tori, the heroine, that she doesn't quite fit in. This is a well-written series, and I'm eager to read the next Tori book (I think it will be published in early 2003).

An absolutely terrific cozy

Lickin Creek is a small rural community in Central Pennsylvania where the English and Plain people peacefully co-exist, while the Hollow people stay to themselves in the surrounding hills. Horror novelist Tori Miracle had the honor (or perhaps the misfortune) of visiting the town where her best friend is a resident. During her stay, she investigated a murder and met the man she deeply cares about, Sheriff Garnet Gachenauser. She decides to leave New York to vacation in Lickin Creek to see of she and Garnet have any future together. Her first night back in the tranquil town, she is involved with a new murder investigation. ...... The victim dies in Tori's arms, claiming to have been poisoned. Tori vows to uncover the identity of the killer if it is the last she ever does. Since the murderer wants to remain anonymous, Tori's days may be numbered. She barely escapes two attempts on her life, while two people who might have helped her on her case are found dead. If Tori is not careful, the killer may find the third attempt to be the charm. ..... DEATH, LIES, AND APPLE PIE is a fast moving, entertaining amateur detective cum cozy mystery that captures the duality of warmth and darkness that make up a small town. It is the non-threatening incidents that abound in this absorbing novel that create an atmosphere that allow the reader to bond with the heroine. There are the usual plethora of suspects in the well plotted story line, but most of the audience will not be able to guess who the killer is because Valeri S. Malmont cleverly hides the perpetrator in plain sight. Hopefully, there will be more Tori Miracle adventures in the near future. .....Harriet Klausner