The Death of Pie

Neither the presence of an ancestral ghost nor the folksy pie recipes are sufficient to redeem Myers’s tiresome 19th Pennsylvania-Dutch cozy (after 2010’s Butter Safe than Sorry). Wet-behind-the-ears Hernia, Pa., police chief Toy Graham asks Magdalena Yoder, the Mennonite-raised but salty-tongued proprietor of the PennDutch Inn, for help after Ramat Sreym, a writer who alienated the entire community with her “tell-all” memoir, keels over at the local pie festival, smack into Magdalena’s own apple pie. Magdalena agrees, only to treat the investigation—in which her best friends Agnes and Wanda are prime suspects—primarily as an excuse for lame wordplay, rude behavior, and musings on the importance of eating sweets. Additional comic relief is provided by spectral appearances of her deceased Grandma Yoder. Only long-standing devotees of the series are likely to dig in. Agent: Nancy Yost, Nancy Yost Literary Agency. (July)