The Mousse Wonderful Time of the Year

The Mousse Wonderful Time of the Year, the newest in the Gemma's Tea Shop mystery series
by H. A. Hanna. 

Again I will say that H. A. Hanna is prolific.  She has a number of mystery series running at the same time.  This one features, a young woman Gemma, who has left the world of high finance to come home to her hometown and open a tea shop.  She runs the shop with her oldest best friend.  They have someone who bakes the best scones in the area working for them.  A small group of elderly ladies like to hang out in the shop in the afternoon, referred to as the Old Biddies, and they are always there to help solve the mysteries.

This is mystery takes place around the Christmas holidays so now Hanna has written the Christmas mystery that so many series have in their repertoire .   This is a fun locked room mystery. meaning that everyone involved arrives at the mansion for a Christmas party.  Someone is murdered and a snow storm keeps all the people involved stuck in the house and no one can come or go until the storm abates.  So the murder is definitely in house.  No police can get to the scene of the crime so Gemma and the Old Biddies are there to get as much information and clues before the scene is disturbed.  Gemma now gets to interview all the suspects, guests.

Things reach a climax just as the storm ends and the police can get through to finish up the solving of the crime.  Hanna is good at creating a clever entertaining mystery even though they are not very intricate, and they are definitely following a formula.

I look forward to her next novels.