Dying For a Cupcake is the fourth entry in the Devereaux's Dime Store series.

Shadow Bend, Missouri needs money. Kizzy Cutler, cupcake tycoon, is a Shadow Bend native willing to hold her contest in her old hometown. Dev's dime store is one of the local businesses to benefit from Cupcake Weekend (the same weekend as the 4th of July). In fact, Kizzy is paying to have Dev's unused second floor remodeled to hold the contest judging there. Too bad Kizzy hasn't changed from when she and her clique, the Cutthroats, reigned at the old Shadow Bend High School. Good thing her partner, Lee, is a much nicer woman. Even with Lee's prompting, Kizzy's thank you to Dev for saving her life is far from gracious.

If Dev's finances are looking up, her love life has taken a nosedive. Jake is still stuck in St. Louis trying to rescue the ex-wife who divorced him when it looked as if an injury would keep him from walking again from a serial killer.

Dev's other boyfriend, Noah, is keeping a promise to his med school mentor, which involves an annual stint with Disaster Doctors. This year he's going to Haiti.

Unluckily for Jake and Noah, there's a new hunk in town named Coop, and Dev is one of the local women the Fire Marshall finds attractive. She feels guilty even though she's not dating him.

Boone and Poppy are both in town this time and both have good roles. As for Dev's dad, he's now a clerk at the dime store. Father and daughter are still feeling their way around their relationship. A complication for a future book comes in the form of a letter from Dev's shallow mother.

I enjoyed the mystery, the problems with the contest, and interactions among the characters. (I've yet to read a Denise Swanson cozy I haven't enjoyed.)

Notes:

See chapter 3 for what the interior decorator did with Dev's second floor.

See chapter 5 for that month's signature candy at the dime store. That's also where we find out what Kizzy did to one of her contest's judges.

Chapter 7 is where we find out a nice thing Birdie Sinclair did for her son, Kern. It's also where we learn that Birdie and her friend, Frieda, are both members of St. Saggy's Martha Society. (Martha was the sister who was busy with hospitality tasks while her sister, Mary, was listening to Jesus. I've long wished that Martha had just plopped down and listened to Jesus, too, after his response to her complaint. Better yet, it would have been nice had Jesus talked while helping in the kitchen. Luke, chapter 10, verses 38-42)

That same chapter mentions the destruction of St. Saggy's statue of Jesus (more than 200 years after Ben Franklin invented the lightning rod). The name of the man to whom that statue was erected as a memorial made me smile.

In chapter 8 we meet a young lady who calls herself 'Q'. Dev and most of the others listening to her do not find her explanation enlightening. Tsk. (Q should be grateful no one asks her about the James Bond character.) That's also the chapter where we learn why the locals make a beeline for Vera Thom's brownies and avoid of the cake provided by mean-girl-unmellowed-by-age Gwen Bourne's aunt, Mrs. Cormac.

Yes, Gwen has a role again and she still thinks Dev stole Noah from her -- as if Noah had ever been hers.

The brief time Boone was suspected of murder that gets mentioned in chapter 8 happened in book two, Nickeled-and-Dimed to Death.

The new Shadow Bend high school is described in chapter 9. Sounds nice.

See chapter 10 for a description of one of the smaller lounges at Gossip Central.

Some of the contest cupcakes and what kind of apple trees grow on what's left of the Sinclair homestead are both described in chapter 14. That's also where you can read about how Kizzy misbehaved with another of the contest judges.

See chapter 25 for a lawyer's quip that is not unlike one from a famous real-life trial. Hee.

Cat lovers, Tsar gets to make an appearance (Boone's Russian Blue is still seeing a cat therapist, by the way), but Banshee is only mentioned at the beginning of chapter 12. Isn't it nice to know that the paperback cover isn't cheating by having a cat on it?

Dog lovers, you're out of luck with this entry. ( )

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