CBR Bingo- You are Here
I am on my couch, watching a lot of GBR, under a blanket. It’s Great British Baking Show, with murder! Oh, and set in Vermont. Betsy Martin is Prue, the bestselling author of a number of baking books and called “America’s grandmother.” She has been hosting a show called “Bake Week” for years. In this version, the baking competition takes place in Betsy’s sprawling mansion, and the contestants sleep there. There are many of GBR’s typical characters; the young one, the beginning baker, the Grandmotherly one, the one who uses science to create his bakes, etc.
The book also has a character who is a wealthy tech bro who took up baking to cure boredom of something. When the grandmother character starts sneaking around the property he finds her and then decides to help her. His character worked the least for me. There was a lot of detail about his excessive drinking like the author was going for something, and then she didn’t. I don’t know, maybe something about too much wealth. I don’t have to like every character in a cozy mystery, but I thought his arc was building into something that fizzled out at the end as we got to the conclusion.
There’s a smaller mystery when contestants have their bakes sabotaged, which added a bit of fun drama. And then there’s Archie, the murdered guy, who is added as a host to the show at the insistence of management even though Betsy has been fine on her own to that point. Archie is not a good person. (I have seen people calling him the Paul but I prefer to think of him as the Matt.)
But….even when a terrible person dies there’s still an investigation. There are forensics. People are questioned. None of that happens here…so…it just lost a star for me. I’ve seen it called a thriller, which I don’t think of it as, I thought of it as a cozy mystery. And I liked it. For one thing, all the female characters were fully fleshed out and had agency, so it couldn’t have been a thriller. And the bond between the contestants was enjoyable. I guess I had a few nitpicks, but I did enjoy it and will watch it when it comes out on Hulu.