Puddin’ on the Blitz

In Myers’s labored 21st Pennsylvania Dutch cozy (after 2016’s Tea with Jam and Dread), Conservative Mennonite Magdalena Yoder, who lives with her husband, Gabriel Rosen (aka the Babester), and their two children in Hernia, Pa., receives a surprise visit from Hortense Gelato Hemphopple, the daughter of Wanda Sissleswitzer Hemphopple, who’s in jail for trying to kill Magdalena. Hortense wants to reopen Wanda’s now defunct restaurant, the Sausage Barn, and needs Magdalena’s help. In the end, the two open Asian Sensation, with an eclectic menu of separate Amish and Asian cooking. The restaurant fails, but not before their signature pastry, Blitz Torte, poisons a guest staying at Magdalena’s PennDutch Inn. Discovering that the poison pastry was meant for the Babester sends Magdalena out sleuthing. Page after page of caricatures, stereotypes, and bad puns pad the thin story line. Those who like broad humor (“what goes ‘clop, clop, clop—bang—clop, clop, clop?’ The answer: an Amish drive-by shooting”) will best appreciate this one. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary. (Dec.)