Reading: A CUP OF HOLIDAY FEAR - Ellie Alexander

The 10th (though first for me) Bakeshop Mystery gets the Christmas-obsessed mountain town of Ashland, Oregon so meticulously and perfectly described, you should be able to feel the snow in the air and Christmas lights of every color twinkling around you. Similarly, the book's intro to Torte - the bakeshop itself centered in the town plaza across from the local police station and also dolled up for Christmas - brings to full life the smells and tastes and warmth of the coziest bakeshop in the west, co-run and -owned by Jules Capshaw, who also happens to have a nose for solving mysteries. As a bonus to their employees, Jules and her partner/mother have treated their staff, for Christmas, to the Dickens Feast at the local Winchester Inn on the hill, where a six-course period-correct meal will be served by the likes of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jacob Marley as live carolers sing, in a hotel redecorated in the same era for the occasion (though the book takes awhile to get the reader to that night, which only happens when page after page of description, exposition, and a lot of baking/cooking have gone by). The first quarter of the book paints a perfect, detailed picture of Ashland at Christmastime that you could almost live in - but the problem, for me, was that the lengthy descriptions never stopped. By the time the murder occurs the author has thrown enough at you, you aren't a hundred percent sure who the victim will be (kudos for that) until the person is found dead ... but that's more than a third of the way into the novel, and for me things went a little downhill from there. Readers get yet more detailed descriptions of baking and recipes, while something as important as any clues from the crime scene or body are never covered or cared enough about to be mentioned (indeed, no forensics team even appears to show up; none are mentioned and no such evidence is ever discussed - instead the story coming off like the coroner just came to collect the body, and left again as the cops started asking questions and investigating). Character development of any depth is relegated mostly to Jules or the ongoing cast of characters, even the mystery itself really taking a backseat to the town, its residents, and the season (truly, a romance plot could have replaced the mystery in this book without extensive rewrites). And, of course, the baking. Even worse (MILD SPOILER AHEAD; nothing ruined but be alert!) is the unforgivable sin this book makes of having its killer nabbed "off-screen"; in other words, instead of the murderer's apprehension in the story, in real-time, readers learn the person's fate the same way the main character does - when someone tells her. This robs the reader of all that time and emotional investment in all the pages that came before, only to not actually see justice done on the page (the killer's motive? Also one of the weakest I've ever read, in over four decades of reading mysteries). Very conflicted about this one, a well-written Christmas-themed mystery that works on some levels but definitely not as a mystery. Can't help but feel that a romance subplot would have fit with the rest of the book's tone and worked a lot better.  2/5 stars

NOTE: I received a free ARC of this title from NetGalley and the publisher, in exchange for an honest review.