Fetch Your Copy The Sourdough Wars (Rebecca Schwartz, #2) Drafted By Julie Smith Available In Manuscript

and Chris are running an auction of sourdough starter for Peter Martindale, They have buyers vying for the dough and then the buyers get a warning call telling them not to buy it, Then Peter is discovered murdered after he doesn't show for the auction, Then there is a second murder of one of the prospective buyers, Rebecca works on solving the crimes with her newspaper reporter Rob, Enjoyable legal murder mystery

I gave this book four out of five, because of believable characters and a well written plot.
Rebecca's Jewish mother is overbearing and just what you would imagine, She has some laugh out loud lines, Meh.

Apparently, properly made sourdough bread is a thing in Northern California, Likely it dates back to gold rush times, Anyway, a sourdough magnate dies and his "starter" is to be auctioned off, There are something like four groups vying for the starter, but people in the groups begin dying, Then too, it appears that the starter is not where it's supposed to be, It can't be found.

Rebecca Schwartz, a Jewish/Feminist lawyer gets involved along with her journalist boyfriend, Rob Burns, and a couple of others.
It was an ok story, but not all that great,
This is awful. The thing about cozy mysteries is they are expected to be fun, whilst providing sharp observational humor and decent plot quiz, Let's begin by saying that this book begins very slowly and by the time the murder occurs you wish every single character you've met so far would die a horrible slow death.
From the perpetually confused main character to her unethical best friend to the entire cast of secondary incredibly badly written characters,

There is a little bit of excitement as the body is discovered, but the investigation is shoddy interpersed with drawn out yakking by the main heroine.
I don't know if the author was supposed to be an example of a Jewish girl investigating the murder, but as a Jewish woman I felt irritated at the heroine and barely managed to control my yawning when the murder was solved.
All in all, if you are into cozy mysteries, avoid this one, It's a good example of how not to write in this genre,
Too many reasons to hate this book,
One. It was racist. Using slurs against not just one but two different minorities,
Two. The high speed chase away from the police, resulting in a car crash, She's a LAWYER FOR PITY'S SAKE!
Three, The "gays"! No Rapist in the "Gay's" neighborhood! WTF,
Four. The whole story was so damn convoluted, Seriously. Cryogenic frozen sourdough starter worth,that people are committing robbery and murder for
Five, It's supposed to be at a high tech secured place, yet it's stolen not once but TWICE!!
Six, The boyfriend leaves his girlfriend with a GUN WIELDING PERSON TRYING TO Illegally HOLD THEM, and takes off to GET A STORY FOR THE NEWSPAPER!!! AND SHE TOOK HIM BACK!
Seven.
TOO MANY MORE TO LIST!

Seriously, Just don't. Fun Read With Interesting Characters

Rebecca, and almost everyone she encounters, have more than the normal share of character quirks.
Of course, that provides grist for a murder mystery that is humorous, intriguing, and interesting,

San Francisco is another character in the story, The city adds some color, The descriptions were vivid enough to bring back long forgotten memories of some parts of the city, sitelinkThe Sourdough Wars by sitelinkJulie Smith is Smith's second book in

her Rebecca Schwartz mystery series, She also writes the Skip Langdon and Tabitha Walls' series, Rebecca Schwarz is a lawyer based in San Francisco working in partnership with her friend, Chris Nicholson, This mystery finds them involved in the world of Sourdough bread and bakeries,
Both attend a play by acquaintance Peter Martinelli, Martinelli, it turns out, comes from a family that had been successful in the sourdough bread industry, supposedly very big in the San Francisco area.
He inherited the 'starter' dough for their famous sourdough bread, Martinelli is persuaded to sell this starter dough off at an auction, which sparks interest from rival bakers, the brothers Tosi, Sally Devereaux a smaller baker and Clayton Thompson, rep for a major breadmaking conglomerate.
All the interested parties arrive for the auction but when Martinelli doesn't show up, Rebecca and her boyfriend Rob the reporter discover his dead body murdered.

This begins an investigation by Rebecca, Rob and Chris into the world of sourdough bread and who might be guilty of the murder.
It's a fun ride, in a similar vein as those of Lilian Jackson Braun's 'Cat who' mysteries, or Karen Kijewski's Kat Colorado mysteries.
There are plenty of suspects, including all the competing parties and even Peter Martinelli's sister, who had also wanted the starter dough.

Combined a quick paced mystery / adventure with lots of action, you also have Rebecca's relationships, with her Jewish parents, her sister and boyfriend and all of the other's mentioned.
It's not a complex mystery, just an entertaining one, Enjoy.This is bookin the Rebecca Schwartz cozy mystery series, The two books are standalones, so you can enjoy this one w/o reading the first,
Rebecca is a feminist Jewish lawyer in San Francisco as we read constantly, She and her partner, Chris, are involved in Chris' new love interest's decision to sell his family's sourdough starter in order to save the theater which he loves.
For those who don't know like me, San Francisco is apparently famous for its sourdough breads, Anyway, Chris, Peter the love interest, an actor, and Rebecca plan an auction to sell the sourdough, Only four people apply to bid at the auction however: two brothers who own competing bakeries a representative of a corporation and a woman trying to make the bigtime w/ her sourdough bakery.
However, Peter doesn't show up on the day of the auction, and so the action begins,
There is the obligatory scary moments for our heroine, and people who are not as they seem, Rebecca's new love interest, the reporter Rob that we met in Book, fails her a couple of times is his job an obsession to the point that he would endanger Rebecca to chase a story The characters are far more interrelated than upon first glance, and I did not figure out the murderer until told always a positive in a cozy for me.

However, I just didn't ever get into this one the way I did the first one, sostars, This book was terrible. The author actually used the term, "the gays, " Then joked about how there wouldn't be any rapists in "the gays" neighborhood, but maybe the straight male gentrifiers needed to be worried.


Gross. I didn't finish and I suggest you don't start, Rebecca Schwartz, and her law partner, Chris Nicholson, are asked by Peter Martinelli to auction off his familys sourdough starter, By the time of the auction each of the four bidders has received a phone call telling them not to bid, Then Peter doesnt show up, He is found at his apartment murdered, Rebecca and Chris start investigating along with Rob, Rebeccas reporter boyfriend, This was a better volume than the first, Characters more believable and less silly situations, I stumbled across this series and read this book basically because it was a mystery and free, I also love San Francisco and make sour dough bread, It was entertaining but something was missing, Perhaps some of this was because this was the second in the series and the author seemed to make the assumption that all the background I needed had already been presented.
Perhaps it was that it was written inwhich put it in a weird time/space continuum: everything was modern, but there were no cell phones or computers, and being gay was still a big secret.
That made the read like driving with a flat tire, DigitalBookSpot
TheFussyLibrarian
Rebecca Schwarts Mysteries,I found it less of a mystery as a romance Fun and easy!

I jumped into this series in the middle read booksandfirst and t g eye were easy to slip into.
This step back was fun, great mystery but again the authors style is like she expects her books to be made into tv movies so many things happen 'off screen' this the need for long monologues when it's time to solve the mystery.
You will never guess as much of what you need to piece it together is either written down and shown to another character or whispered or heard on a phone call.
Good thing these are light weight pieces of fluff, I'll keep them in rotation between biographies and literary fiction, It's not you, book, it's me, I lost respect for your main character when she and her buddy decided to go speeding after a wouldbe burglar through the streets of San Franciso, and then led the police on a highspeed chase until the police got in an accident.
The fact that they were quite chastened by that does not change the fact that it was a dumbass move to start with.
And then they went and got in a stupid argument/fight, and Rebecca's short stint in jail was obviously written to be funny, but I didn't find it so because of the circumstances.
And I just haven't been willing to pick the book up again,

I bought it at a used book sale because it involved a mystery and baking two of my favorite things! And it was going fine until I developed this dislike for the main character.
It's full of vivid and interesting characters, and I was willing to forgive Rebecca for her somewhat excessively toughgirl attitude bearing in mind that this was published in thes, but I just don't want to experience her point of view any more.


Sorry, book. Better luck with another reader, A nice quick read. I definitely did not have this one figured out until the reveal, I like the MC, but I don't know why she didn't contact someone before confronting the killer, :P Overall, though, it was a good mystery and kept my interest, I'll keep reading this series, There are three reasons why I read Sourdough Wars, I grew up in Marin Co, and so the San Francisco angle intrigued me, Second, after spending two years in France I am enamoured with all things bread, and I remember the great sourdough French bread.
The third reason is that it was free,

I subscribe to Bookbub and Sourdough Wars was one of the daily specials,

I am going to cut top the chase and say that if I had paid full price for this book I would feel a little cheated.
It is not a bad book, but I feel that it does not live up to its potential, The first jacket blurb calls The Sourdough Wars: A Cozy and Humorous San Francisco Mystery, This is the beginning of the failure, The novel has its humorous moments, but too many of them feel forced and even more, it fails at being cozy,

Now when I think cozy in the genre of murder mystery, I think of Lord Peter Whimsey, or Albert Campion, or sometimes Hercule Poirot.
I can see the author trying to put this into the same area, but to me it just fails in giving me the cozy feeling of those older works.
Some of it might be that I feel more nostalgia for those older times than I do four modern San Francisco, I cannot quite put my finger on it,

Now, as a murder mystery it is pretty good, The denouement was a surprise to me, It may be lacking a little bit in the set up, because I felt that the murderer was acting a little out of character at the end, and I blame that on the author not presenting the character properly.
Also, there are two murders and I do not feel like we, the readers, are given enough information to figure things as the protagonist does.


So, The Sourdough Wars is an adequate, but not spectacular murder mystery than fails to give us the cozy feeling that it seems intent on providing.
It is still only.for Kindle, and at that price is still a good value, .