I'm a huge Myrtle Clover fan so I was interested to see that the author writes/wrote under the pen name Riley Adams and had published the Memphis BBQ Mysteries.

This was an enjoyable cozy mystery series set around a family owned BBQ restaurant. The owner is Lulu Taylor - an eccentric grandmotherly busy body who finds herself embroiled in the investigation when a cooking show scout ends up dead after eating at her restaurant. My favourite character was Derrick. And I enjoyed the Graces too. (They're massive Elvis fans who met at Graceland when they were all going individually every day and were then offered to be volunteer guides.) The mystery itself was interesting enough even if not too surprising. I liked the different viewpoints although it was confusing at first because there are quite a few characters and I couldn't keep them all straight.

Overall enjoyable cozy mystery. 3 stars. ( )

Fun and entertaining ( )

It wasn't what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. The plot was good, the sense of place was excellent - I could really picture Aunt Pat's - and the characters likeable. The ending was a small departure from your normal cozies, but was handled really well. While this isn't my 'normal' preference for a cozy, I will definitely take a look at the next one in the series - I may be in a cozy reading rut! :) ( )

I liked this book but I had some problems with it, mostly the number of characters and how they all related. Aunt Pat's Barbeque is the center of the story, and Aunt Pat is no longer with us - so the woman she willed it to, LuLu Taylor, is the main character. Her family consists of two sons, one daughter-in-law, two granddaughters (twins who are *very* different) and a "shirt-tail" relative who is actually the nephew of the DIL. Then you come to the regular customers of Aunt Pat's, three elderly black men who eat there daily and also play the blues. Four females who work as docents at Graceland and the owner of a local bookstore. In other words, a lot of people to get to know!

Now that I know them and know how the relationships work I'm hoping the next book will read a little easier (I admit to having a problem with books with tons of characters who all have significance to the story).

Having said that, I liked Lulu and her family, I love one of the twins (we get to know her better) and I enjoyed the mystery.

I will keep reading because I want to find out more about Lulu and her family. ( )

This was a rather gentle and enjoyable book that did a fairly good job of balancing the character story lines with the murder mystery which was probably helped by the fact that the murder ended up touching on the lives of most of the characters introduced.
The characters were a lot of fun if a bit idealized at times and I felt that the author did go a bit over the top with making the victim and main villain as unsympathetic as possible but overall I enjoyed getting to know them and ended up caring about most of them.
The restaurant of Aunt Pat’s itself was the biggest character in way and felt far more real than the city of Memphis it’s set in, in fact I didn’t really get a feel for the overall location at all, it could have been set anywhere but as I was reading that didn’t bother me or even cross my mind as the restaurant itself felt so real and vibrant and really more important that any other location, it didn’t even cross my mind till I was done that I didn’t really know where it was set.
As for the mystery it was a bit weak overall in that what brought all the suspects together at the right time and place felt a bit coincidental and the police involvement was all but nonexistent and it seemed a bit far fetched that they would have missed all that was going on but I did rather like that the main characters involvement in the investigation was more just talking to people and using what she knew of them rather than hunting down physical clues, it felt a bit more realistic as far as cozy mysteries go.
An overall fun book and I’m looking forward to the next one. ( )