Social media influencer Maddy Montgomery thinks she’s finally getting into the #SwingOfThings right as renovations on the Baby Cakes bakery she’s inherited are coming to a close. She’s still not the world’s best baker, but she’s determined to continue learning in order to keep her late great aunt Octavia’s legacy alive. Plus, her experience in modern marketing means that she’s already started to put her own and other businesses in her new home of New Bison, Michigan, on the map.

As the weather warms and New Bison gears up for its annual Spring Festival, Maddy is focused on reopening her downtown location with the help of her friends and co-workers. Unfortunately, the arrival of multimillionaire CJ Davenport quickly throws a wrench in the works. Bad enough that he’s come to town to announce that he’ll be opening a rival bakery, featuring an expert pastry chef flown in specially from Belgium. He’s also busy antagonizing some of Maddy’s nearest and dearest as well as other important people in New Bison.

After Maddy impulsively accepts his challenge to a Bake Off that will determine which of their bakeries will remain open past the Spring Festival and which will be forced to close, her friends quickly put their heads together to help her figure out how to win. But could any of them have decided that the only sure way to succeed is by eliminating the competition? That’s certainly what State Trooper Bob Roberts thinks when he’s called in to investigate why Davenport is found dead the very next night, stabbed in the back in Baby Cakes’ downtown bakery.

Maddy and her friends might have their flaws, but the capacity to kill in cold blood certainly isn’t one of them. As the cloud of suspicion falls over each of the Baker Street Irregulars, Maddy will have to race to figure out who of Davenport’s many enemies wanted him dead—before one of her own friends is unjustly convicted of murder.

I love Maddy, her fashionista, social-media lifestyle, and how she continues to integrate that into small-town life with her beloved English mastiff, Baby. The subplot regarding Baby’s depression was also entirely charming—and surprisingly integral to the murder mystery. I so enjoy how this series continues to make it abundantly clear that while each book ends with the capture of A Villain, we’re still waiting to bring The Villain to justice. While I figured out in the last book who that latter is, I’m on tenterhooks to see who else might be involved in The Villain’s surprisingly complex criminal conspiracy.

There were five recipes for delicious sweets included here, and I decided to try out this one:

Michael’s Easy Sugar Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

⅔ cup + 3 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Rainbow sprinkles (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Beat together butter and ⅔ cup sugar until combined.

Add in flour and blend well. Then blend in the vanilla.

Roll the dough into 1-inch balls.

Press down on the balls of dough with the bottom of a glass to flatten, and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.

Bake for 14-16 minutes or until just slightly golden around the edges and on the bottom.

Sprinkle with the remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar and add the sprinkles (if using).

Cool on the baking sheet for at least 10-15 minutes.

In all honesty, I was a little skeptical about this recipe because it seems almost too easy. The dough comes out very crumbly, and I was concerned about the end product’s integrity once baked. I needn’t have worried, though, because the cookies firm up quite nicely upon cooling. My only regret is that my husband forgot to buy rainbow sprinkles, so while these cookies came out tasting delicious, they lacked a little of the visual pizazz sprinkles would have given them (Maddy would have been very disappointed in me). Not that it mattered to anyone else in my family, who gobbled them all up quickly!

Next week, we travel to New England to whip up a sweet treat while investigating the suspicious death of a socialite with a mean streak. Do join me!

See also: Cooking the Books: Flat White Fatality by Emmeline Duncan