Southern Fried

De: Tonya Kappes

Narrado por: Hillary Huber

After the dead body of a beloved Cottonwood resident is found tangled up in an electric fence, Sheriff Kenni Lowry has a hunch that somethin' ain't right. Her investigation heats up with a fierce cook-off competition, a euchre game where the intel is sweeter than the brownies, and a decades-old family recipe that may just be the proof in the pudding. The icing on the cake is that Kenni is fighting an attraction to her recently sworn-in deputy sheriff, and election season is hot on her tail. When the killer comes after those she holds most dear, even her poppa's ghostly guidance might not be enough to keep her and her own out of the frying pan.

©2017 Tonya Kappes (P)2017 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Great series

I’m really enjoying this series. The characters are well crafted and the storyline is original.

A must read

I love the storyline and the narrator. I think its a wonderful book. can't wait for the next one.

Fried Okra, Ghost Poppa, and Kentucky Shenanigans

The second in the Kenni Lowry Mysteries series is a humdinger (got that from my granddaddy). Kenni, still filling her Poppa’s shoes as Sheriff of Cottonwood, Kentucky is on the trail of a murderer, and trying her best to avoid her prim and proper mother, who envisions Kenni married and attending church committee meetings. Her new deputy is easy on the eyes, but her ghost Poppa is keeping a close eye on Deputy Finn . . . and an even closer eye on Kenni when she’s alone with him. The quirky characters will keep you entertained and the murder mystery is fun, as well. Food is a top priority in the south and Cottonwood is no exception, so when family infighting starts up as to who inherits the family cookbook after the death of its owner, Kenni has another mystery on her hands. Light hearted, and full of country wit, don’t miss Southern Fried.

Detecting with a ghost

Sheriff Kenni Lowry gets called to the scene of another death in Southern Fried by Tonya Kappes. A man (at least they think it’s a man) is lying face down in the prize tomato patch of Myrna, a resident of their small town of Cottonwood, KY, so covered with tomatoes that he is hard to recognize even when they turn him over. Owen Godby’s legs are wrapped in electric fence wire, making Kenni and her deputy Finn suspect foul play. And by the way, what happened to Owen’s shoes? Why is he barefoot?

As Kenni begins her investigation, she discovers that the family has been at odds for a long time, and they have been fighting over the ownership of the cookbook that the matriarch of the family left behind. For example, when Owen divorced his wife and didn’t give her the cookbook, she tried to give Owen all of their assets in exchange for the book. The crime clearly seems related to material in this book, which Kenni finds but can’t determine the significance of. She gets assistance from her poppa, the ghost of her grandfather, the former sheriff.

Further, someone is trying to scare away Kenni with threats. The crime scene tape gets torn off everything. Someone stabs the passenger seat of Kenni’s car, leaving the knife in it. And even worse, Owen’s brother, estranged from him until after Owen’s death, at which time he suddenly was Owen’s best friend, loudly accuses Kenni at the city council meeting of not keeping Cottonwood safe and proposes they replace her with a retired deputy.

This book was really enjoyable and kept me eagerly listening. The exciting conclusion drew me in even further.

The readers of Fangirl Nation will notice one technical error in the book. Kenni talks about getting a recording off a SIM card, but most of our readers will recognize that a SIM card is the card that identifies which phone number is connected to which phone. This became annoying at times, but it’s something we can overlook.

Hillary Huber narrates the audio version of this book. I like the accents she uses, and she creates other clearly believable voices. I did have a problem with the recording in that the sound sometimes goes up and down in volume, not always staying even. That was annoying, since I like to listen to my books at the lowest level that I can hear comfortably.

Southern Fried was an exciting book. I liked the first book, Fixin’ to Die but I liked this one better. I give it five stars.

Southern Fried

Southern Fried by Tonya Kappes
Kenni Lowry series #2. Southern paranormal cozy mystery series. Best read in series order.
Another body is found in Cottonwood and Sheriff Kenni Lowry is on the case. Unfortunately the body is in a patch of prize winning tomatoes with barbed wire fence marks around the ankle so Kenni needs to work fast or the property owner won’t wait to harvest the tomatoes, body or not. The fierce cook-off competition has Kenni, her ghostly guidance and new deputy sheriff all working to find the killer before the next victim is cold.

Amusing southern style cozy that moves quickly as the town regulars do their quirky thing.
🎧 I prefer to listen to this author via audiobook. The performance was done by Hillary Huber who does a great job with the character voices and the southern slang. I did have to increase the speed to 1.6 to more closely match a Midwest conversation.