Book Information

The Crepes of Wrath by Sarah Fox

Publisher: Alibi

Publication Date: August 16, 2016

Genre: Mystery | Series

Purchase: Kindle

Author Information

Sarah Fox, writer of cozy mysteries, was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she developed a love for mysteries at a young age. When not writing novels or working as a legal writer she is often reading her way through a stack of books or spending time outdoors with her English Springer Spaniel.

Sarah is the author of the Music Lover’s Mysteries and the Pancake House Mysteries. Sarah can be found on her website, Facebook, and Twitter.

Photo and bio courtesy of Goodreads

The Crepes of Wrath Synopsis

In the debut of a delightful cozy mystery series, Sarah Fox introduces a charming new heroine who finds herself in a sticky situation: stacking pancakes, pouring coffee, and investigating murder.

When Marley McKinney’s aging cousin, Jimmy, is hospitalized with pneumonia, she agrees to help run his pancake house while he recovers. With its rustic interior and syrupy scent, the Flip Side Pancake House is just as she pictured it — and the surly chef is a wizard with crepes. Marley expects to spend a leisurely week or two in Wildwood Cove, the quaint, coastal community where she used to spend her summers, but then Cousin Jimmy is found murdered, sprawled on the rocks beneath a nearby cliff.

After she stumbles across evidence of stolen goods in Jimmy’s workshop, Marley is determined to find out what’s really going on in the not-so-quiet town of Wildwood Cove. With help from her childhood crush and her adopted cat, Flapjack, Marley sinks her teeth into the investigation. But if she’s not careful, she’s going to get burned by a killer who’s only interested in serving up trouble.

Synopsis courtesy of Goodreads

The Crepes of Wrath Review

The Crepes of Wrath is a cozy-mystery novel that is supposed to be the start of a new series centered around Marley McKinney. Cozy mysteries are mystery novels that are supposed to have mystery but be lighthearted as well. While I liked the concept of the setting for The Crepes of Wrath, her headquarters as a pancake house is pretty unique, and the story, I just felt that Sarah Fox fell short on her mark in the genre and for the story itself. Ms. Fox spends so much time trying to make you feel sorry and sympathize for Marley that it kind of felt like it took over more of the story and not in a good way. In addition to that the actual mystery story itself felt like watching a bad CSI or Criminal Minds episode. Marley did things that just did not make sense, like taking evidence from a crime scene in front of a cop’s son, and the story just didn’t feel like a mystery.

Overall, I’m sad to say that The Crepes of Wrath is a skip. I wish it was better than it was and I do hope that the second book goes a bit better. I just think that The Crepes of Wrath was a cozy-mystery that was at times trying to hard to be a regular mystery book and at other times trying to hard to be niche.