I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Halloween mysteries are full of tricks and treats. And that's especially true of the two I just gobbled: Leslie Meier's Candy Corn Murder and Lee Hollis's Death of a Wicked Witch. Both involve vehicular homicide, although not in the way you'd imagine, as well as, of course, festive food.
In Candy Corn Murder, a local is stuffed in a car trunk in the middle of Tinker Cove's pumpkin-catapulting competition. (There's also a guess-how-many-candy-corns-are-in-the-canister contest.) In Death of a Wicked Witch, Bar Harbor's boo-tiful new sandwich artist bites the big one by being gassed in her own Wicked 'Witches food truck.
Like Joanne Fluke, Lee Hollis sprinkles in recipes, and in Death of a Wicked Witch, they're all for sandwiches (hoagies and grinders, hoagies and grinders!). Witch Which always makes me wonder. Are they there to serve as a delicious distraction, or for the deeper purpose of offering life-affirming balance to the bone-chilling murder? You know, kind of like how people bring cakes and casseroles when someone dies. Then again, like those cakes and casseroles, these subs and clubs have enough fat to end someone's life instead of sustaining it.
These are the things that keep me up at night. That and the BLTs.