Murder, She Baked: A Peach Cobbler Mystery

6/10 - good mystery that makes for a great 2 hours

The third entry in the Murder She Baked cozy mystery series on Hallmark, starring Alison Sweeney. In this episode a new bakery opens in the small town of Eden Lake which cuts in to Hannah's profits at The Cookie Jar. To make matters worse the new baker/owner is a college friend of detective Mike and his deceased wife!

Egged on by her family, Hannah orders one of the Magnolia bakery's famous peach cobblers, a supposed family recipe. Along with her family and the mayor, Hannah does a blind taste test in which Hannah's cobbler wins amongst all of the judges. At least two of the judges...including Hannah herself think the Magnolia's pie tastes familiar. That night Hannah figures out why and shares the reason with her sister, who in a fit of defending Hannah bursts out with the reason at the mayor's daughter's wedding rehearsal in front of most of the town. The baker of The Magnolia bakery leaves in tears with a proclamation that she will bring her cobblers to the wedding.

Day of the wedding Hannah does a good deed, someone ends up dead and for the first time Hannah is the prime suspect!!!!!

Valentine's Day is quickly approaching and our dentist Norman seems to be winning major points supporting and helping Hannah. Mike, our handsome detective, is avoiding Hannah because she is the prime suspect in his case.

Meanwhile the real mystery is who will be Hannah's date for the big day?

Sweet, funny and a must watch in the Murder She Baked series.

I love these books and episodes, but why is Hannah not a slightly chubby redhead, as she's described in the books?

With The Cookie Jar, Hannah Swensen has a tasty monopoly on the bakery business of Lake Eden, Minnesota. But when a rival store opens, and one of the owners is found shot to death in the store, Hannah is determined to prove that she wasn't the only one who had an axe to grind with the Quinn sisters. Somebody wasn't fooled by the Georgia Peaches and their sweet-as-pie act--and now it's up to Hannah to track down whoever had the right ingredients to whip up a murder.

Peach cobblers, competition between two bakeries and murder - a predictable but fun mystery which is well-paced, has good characters as well as nice setting and a good build up to the murder.

This episode really develops various aspects of the triangle of Hannah, Mike and Norman. For one thing, we find out more about Mike's past, his late wife, and one of their mutual friends who also had a crush on Mike. Meanwhile, with Mike distracted by events, Norman has a chance to strengthen his relationship with Hannah.

We see the results of the murder at the start of the movie, and then there is a flashback of what leads up to it. These things take up about half the movie. Personally I hate this type of flashback. I also hate when the lead character, who is also an established upstanding citizen, is suspected of the murder. Yep, Hannah literally walks right into being a suspect.

I also hate when the protagonist ignores the law doing illegal things in the name of "helping" the investigation. Admittedly, Hannah has skirted the line on this in previous episodes, but this time ...

I have liked previous episodes of the series of movies, primarily because of Alison Sweeney. Hannah's heart is so big, it is hard not to like her. In this one, there were too many of my pet peeves, so I didn't care for it. However, many viewers without my prejudices will probably enjoy this one because there is so much going on.