Title:	Rhubarb Pie Before You Die
	Author:	Gin Jones
	Published:	December 22, 2020, Lyrical Press
	No. of Pages:	217
	Cover Price:	$15.95 Paperback, $4.99 Kindle

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Rhubarb Pie Before You Die is the second installment in the Garlic Farm Mystery series by Gin Jones. Mabel Skinner inherited her aunt’s garlic farm, and because she is an app developer, wants to sell the farm so she can move back home and work on her apps. Apparently it isn’t meant to be, and Mabel has also become a farmer. Although she has had offers to purchase the farm, they have come from shady developers; she knows that isn’t what her aunt would want, so she has to be patient while finding a buyer. Because Mabel has a patch of rhubarb on her garlic farm, she interacts with an eccentric rhubarb farmer, who she later finds dead in his greenhouse. She is, of course, one of the prime suspects, and must investigate to find the real murderer.

While Jones has done a good job of developing her characters and their personalities, the name “Mabel” doesn’t seem to fit a young techie, and for the first time (after reading hundreds of cozies and dozens of cozy series), I have a hard time believing someone named Mabel, who is young, could actually be a viable, believable protagonist in a fun series like this. It just doesn’t fit. Nevertheless, the characters are likeable, and Mabel, who is very private, seems to be coming out of her shell as the series progresses.

The storyline is interesting and quite plausible, and Jones does a good job of storytelling. Jones does build suspense as the story progresses, and the story flows with the scenarios that occur during Mabel’s amateur investigation. One of the bonuses of this series is that each of the installments contain a few good recipes. Culinary mystery readers appreciate the recipes, and some of us actually try them.

Rhubarb Pie Before You Die is a fun novel; readers will enjoy it, and will look forward to reading the subsequent novels.


Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.