The Rocky Road to Ruin is the first book in a new culinary cozy mystery series – The Ice Cream Shop Mysteries, featuring Riley Rhodes, who retires from a life of travel and undercover work to run a local ice cream shop.
Title: The Rocky Road to Ruin
Author: Meri Allen
Series: Ice Cream Shop Mysteries #1
First Published: July 27, 2021
Publisher: St. Martin’s Press
Genres: Mystery,
Acquired: from the publisher via Netgalley
*** Thank you to the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for providing me with an e-copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. ***
Riley Rhodes, travel food blogger and librarian at the CIA, makes a bittersweet return to her childhood home of Penniman, Connecticut – land of dairy farms and covered bridges – for a funeral. Despite the circumstances, Riley’s trip home is sprinkled with reunions with old friends, visits to her father’s cozy bookshop on the town green, and joyful hours behind the counter at the beloved Udderly Delicious Ice Cream Shop. It feels like a time to help her friend Caroline rebuild after her mother’s death, and for Riley to do a bit of her own reflecting after a botched undercover mission in Italy. After all, it’s always good to be home.
But Caroline and her brother Mike have to decide what to do with the assets they’ve inherited – the ice cream shop as well as the farm they grew up on – and they’ve never seen eye to eye. Trouble begins to swirl as Riley is spooked by reports of a stranger camping behind the farm and by the odd behaviour of the shop’s mascot, Caroline’s snooty Persian, Sprinkles. When Mike turns up dead in the barn the morning after the funeral, the peace and quiet of Penniman seems upended for good. Can Riley find the killer before another body gets scooped?
Ice cream dreams and wonderful characters
Yes, this is the second ice cream-themed cozy mystery in a row that I’m reviewing. And OMG, the ice cream descriptions in this book are absolutely drool-worthy. As someone who actually does make her own ice cream once in a while, I am so ready to pull out my ice cream maker and give these recipes a go! Flavours like Cherry Dark-Chocolate Chunk, Bourbon-Pecan Praline, the very intriguing Sunflower flavour and of course, the boozy Margarita ice cream had me itching to start experimenting!
As for the story itself, I was hooked within the first few opening pages. There were so many things about the main character, Riley, and her hometown that appealed to me. From Riley’s father’s used bookstore (The Penniless Reader) to Riley’s rented blue mustang convertible (we always rent mustang convertibles during our vacations to Hawaii). I also loved almost everything about Riley herself – she’s a librarian at the CIA library who travels the world and runs a food blog called ‘Rhode Food’ and definitely someone I would love to hang out with.
I also really liked some of the supporting characters in the story, which included Riley’s best friend, Caroline, an older couple Darwin and Prudence Brightwood, and Riley’s new friend (and Mike’s girlfriend), Angelica Miguel. All the characters were very distinct and had interesting personalities, but they all had a great sense of community and being able to pitch in to help, which I found really appealing without being overly sugary.
I wasn’t sure if any of the characters were supposed to be potential boyfriends for Riley, but that’s kind of a nice change of pace too. I find that the main characters in these cozy mysteries almost always have a suitor (or two, or three) on hand, so not having an immediate romantic angle for our amateur sleuth is refreshing. There were several good-looking candidates, but the only romance hinted at was between Detective Voelker, who was investigating Mike’s murder, and Caroline.
The mystery itself
The Rocky Road to Ruin is a great start to what promises to be a fun series. Riley is the perfect amateur detective – she has the skills and background to make her a realistic sleuth but she also has lots of interesting subplots swirling around her.
There were lots of hints, clues and red herrings throughout the story and several characters kicked my instincts into overdrive. I actually had one part of the mystery solved by page 31 but there were several surprising twists and revelations before the full resolution and the killer was revealed at the end. While I had figured out who was the murderer before the final big reveal, the motive and backstory were far more interesting than I had expected. It was definitely a race to the finish.
The book is well-paced and rarely lags in moving the story forward. I think the first book in any series has the toughest job since it has to establish a lot of the characters and the setting, while at the same time presenting an interesting mystery to keep the reader entertained and ready to come back for more.
The Rocky Road to Ruin definitely hit all the right spots for me and I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series. In the meantime, I think it’s time for a bowl of ice cream, don’t you?
Read The Rocky Road to Ruin for yourself
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Saying you’d like to hang out with Riley is the nicest compliment. Thank you so much for reading and reviewing Rocky Road!
LOL – it’s so true! I feel like Riley and I would have so much to talk about!