Review

Best Served Cold: A Hannah Swensen Mystery
Subtitle: Murder, Muffins, and Another Completely Normal Week in Lake Eden

At this point, Hannah Swensen has achieved something remarkable: she has somehow turned owning a bakery into the most dangerous profession in Minnesota. Most bakers worry about burnt cookies and whether people want gluten-free options. Hannah is out here discovering dead bodies before the oven timer goes off.

In Best Served Cold, a forgery case takes a decidedly less-than-artisanal turn when a suspect winds up murdered and the prosecutor connected to the case goes missing. Naturally, Hannah gets involved, because apparently the Lake Eden police department has accepted that the local baker is now an unpaid member of the investigative team.

The mystery delivers everything we expect from the Hannah Swensen universe: suspicious people, complicated relationships, conveniently available clues, and baked goods that somehow remain perfectly presented despite an active murder investigation. Hannah and Delores dig into the case while Chad attempts to deal with the legal mess, proving once again that in Lake Eden, nobody is allowed to simply have a normal Tuesday.

And then there is the romance. Because these are Hallmark movies, solving a murder is important, but solving your feelings is apparently the real climax. There are meaningful looks, emotionally loaded conversations, and enough unresolved romantic tension to make you wonder whether the killer is actually the least complicated relationship in town.

The Hannah Swensen mysteries have always occupied that wonderfully specific space where murder is serious enough to require an investigation but not so serious that anyone has to stop discussing dessert. Best Served Cold continues the tradition with a cozy combination of mystery, romance, small-town charm, and enough baked goods to make a forensic investigator consider a career change.

It may not have the snow-covered extravagance of Hallmark holiday movies, but it has the same fundamental Hallmark philosophy: people will gather in improbably picturesque locations, confront deeply personal emotional problems, and eventually discover that the answer was sitting right in front of them the entire time.

Best Served Cold is a satisfying little mystery wrapped in frosting, romance, and the increasingly undeniable reality that Hannah Swensen should probably stop finding bodies.

But then again, if she did, we wouldn't have another movie.

And frankly, Lake Eden's murder rate isn't going to investigate itself.