Less than a year after the death of her husband, Suzanne Dietz opened the Cackleberry Club café with friends Toni and Petra. The three widows were in the midst of holiday preparations when a tragedy interrupted their good cheer.

As Suzanne was waiting for her banker to arrive at the café for an important business meeting, she heard a crash in the woods. When she rushed out the back door and into the woods to find out what happened, she came upon a gruesome scene. Ben Busacker, the new president of the local bank, had been thrown from his snowmobile, beheaded by a thin wire stretched across the path.

Busacker made many enemies in his short time at the bank and there were no lack of suspects who might have wanted him dead. Several prominent businessmen angled for the position of bank president while the local sheriff and Suzanne tried to find out who the killer was and why Busacker was murdered.

The people of Kindred are shocked that someone in their town could have pulled off such a bizarre murder even though most of them hated the victim. While the mystery is threaded throughout the story, the main characters are also continuing to mind their Café and Book Nook, and planning for the yearly winter festival.

As more Cackleberry Club customers are added to the suspect list by Sheriff Roy Doogie, Suzanne, Toni and Petra decide they better get the case solved before one of them ends up the next victim.

Cozies are known for their small town ambiance where everyone knows your name. While a few of the town’s inhabitants may be eccentric, it’s difficult to believe that someone could be a killer. Stake & Eggs is just such a story.

Stake & Eggs is the fourth book in the popular Cackleberry Club series written by New York Times bestselling author Laura Childs. She is also the author of fan favorites the Tea Shop Mysteries and the Scrapbook Mysteries.

The pacing is steady with a mix of mystery threaded among the day to day activities of the three owners. It’s easy to feel the warmth and camaraderie of the inhabitants and feel like the reader is a part of the story.

As with most food-related cozies, Childs has provided a number of recipes for readers to try out. This is an easy read full of interesting detail and it’s no surprise that the author has become such a success. A Tea Shop Mystery is next up and the author is already working on the next Cackleberry Club mystery.

A special thank you goes to the author for providing us a copy of this book for our review. If you are interested in any of Laura Child’s mysteries, they are available on Amazon.com.