Murder At The Bake Sale (Maya and Sandra Mystery #2) by Lee Hollis #bookreview #mystery

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Title: Murder At The Bake Sale

Author:  Lee Hollis

Publisher: Kensington Cozies

Publication Date: Nov 30, 2021

Page Count:  281

My rating: 5 stars

About the book:

Maya and Sandra are friends, fellow moms, and private-detective partners in the picturesque waterfront city of Portland—where sometimes their cases can get as rocky as the Maine coast . . .
 
While private investigator Maya Kendrick is still mentoring her new partner, PTA president Sandra Wallage, in the detective game, the two women don’t need incredible powers of deduction to know their marriages are on the rocks. With Maya’s ex-cop husband in prison and Sandra’s senator spouse separated from her, both find themselves investigating the dating scene. Until Diego Sanchez turns up dead. The flirtatious high school Spanish teacher who had eyes for Maya was poisoned by cookies from a bake sale fundraiser for a Portland High school class trip to Spain.
 
Hired by the students to find out who killed their popular and beloved teacher—including their own children—Maya and Sandra get a real education in parenting, relationships, and murder as their search for whodunit leads them deep into the unpleasant realities found in the small town politics and gossip of their Maine community . . .

Murder At The Bake Sale by Lee Hollis is the second book in the cozy Maya and Sandra Mystery series. As with most cozy mysteries the Maya and Sandra Mystery series is one that has a fully solved murder within each book so they can be read as a standalone or in any order if choosing to do so. There will be of course be character development that carries over from book to book for those reading from the beginning.

The Maya and Sandra Mystery series is a little different than your average cozy in the fact it has two lead characters and changes the point of view between them to give both sides to the story. Sandra Wallage is a housewife and the PTA president that is married to a scandalous politician. Maya Kendrick is a an ex cop whose husband went to prison and now had become a private investigator that has a huge workload with her partner being pregnant and close to giving birth.

When Sandra’s husband became a victim of a gossipy website called Dirty Laundry outing him as a cheater and then the woman running the Dirty Laundry website was murdered it brought Sandra and Maya together to work the case. After that was solved Sandra found she enjoyed helping Maya and proposed being her new partner. Now the ladies are taking on a new case when hired by the students at their kids high school after the spanish teacher, Diego Sanchez, was found murdered after the high school bake sale.

I will admit that I wasn’t totally sure if I would enjoy The Maya and Sandra Mystery series when I first dove in with book one. The series is a cozy with some humor but along with having two main characters that alternate the point of view it’s also a little different in being a little darker than your normal cozy but I was certainly curious having an actual private investigator as one of the main characters so I did return to this second attempt. With my rating of this one being top notch it’s probably obvious that I did enjoy this second book even more than the first and while some may not enjoy the uniqueness of this series I will definitely be returning for more.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:

Lee Hollis is the pen name for a brother and sister writing team. Rick Copp is a veteran film and television writer/producer living in Palm Springs, California. Holly Simason is an award-winning food and cocktails columnist who lives in North Carolina.