The Cinnamon Roll Murder

Joanne Fluke has written 30 books in this Hannah Swensen Mystery Series. Cinnamon Roll Murder is the 15th installment of the series. I chose this book as a selection for the Color Coded Reading Challenge. I needed a book with a brown shade in the title and cinnamon is it. 

The publisher's summary:  

April is a busy time for Hannah Swensen and her bakery; the warm weather makes folks in Lake Eden, Minnesota, go wild for something sweet. When Hannah hears that the Cinnamon Roll Six jazz band will be playing at the town's Weekend Jazz Festival, she's more than happy to bake up a generous supply of their namesake confections to welcome the band to town.

Before the festival even begins, tragedy strikes when the tour bus overturns. Among those injured is Buddy Neiman, the band's beloved keyboard player. Buddy's injuries appear minor, until his condition suddenly takes a turn for the worse--as in dead. Hannah's no doctor, but she suspects that the surgical scissors someone plunged into Buddy's chest may have something to do with it. Hannah isn't sure just how she'll unravel the mystery, but one thing's for sure: nothing's sweeter than bringing a killer to justice. . .

What can I say? These later books in the series are OK. Just OK. They are not serious mysteries as early books in the series were. While the series has always been light reading, I believe that the plots have suffered as the series gets bigger. Maybe the author is bored with churning out a new book every year. With 30 books written to date, I think the author needs something different to write about. Cinnamon Roll Murder is light on plot and character development. We see the characters having a new dilemma to deal with but there is no real character development. Hannah keeps dating two men, Mike and Norman, but there is no progress in her relationship with either of them. Having read later books in the series, I know that she will marry Mike. Both men continually drop in at all hours for sweets which would annoy me personally.

All the books are the same. Hannah bakes up a storm, then finds a body, and solves the crime after getting into a dangerous situation with the killer. There was some mystery in the beginning of Cinnamon Roll Murder but there weren't any twists or turns to keep me entertained.

I am sorry to say I am rating the book 2.5 stars out of 5 stars.