This is a review of Murder to Go by Chloe Kendrick. This is book 1 in the Food Truck Mysteries series. It is a very light fun read and can be read in a couple of hours.
Maeve Kincaid is a young 25-year-old woman whose life is
going nowhere after finishing college. She is living with and mooching off her parents
and just having a pity party instead of looking for a real job claiming that
she can’t find a job. I do find Maeve to be kind of whiny, shallow, and man
crazed but she grows on you even though she is annoying.
Maeve’s aunt passed away and left her a food truck. Lander
Mendoza (Land) is the chef working on the food truck and he claims Maeve’s aunt
promised to give him the truck when she died. Instead he got shafted and Maeve
got the truck. Land continues working for Maeve. There is a brutal murder on a food truck
right around the corner from where Maeve’s truck is parked. At first Maeve is
believed to be a suspect but is eventually cleared. She starts investigating because
she is curious as to where her aunt got the money to purchase a food truck for
$30, 000 at a police auction. She goes
to talk to the health inspector to see why she kept denying the permits when
Maeve’s aunt was trying to open the food truck. She finds the health inspector
decapitated in her office where she also gets hit on the head and passes out.
When the cops arrive they clear Maeve of any wrongdoing when the EMTs tell the
detective in charge that Maeve is in shock and her injury was not self-inflicted.
She has a concussion. She calls Land and he takes her to her parents’ house for
the night so they can watch her.
Since she has to stay
awake with a concussion she starts reading a book that belonged to her aunt. In
this book she finds a will that was written by her aunt leaving the food truck
to Land and signed by two witnesses. She takes the will to her lawyer and he
tells her they can get the handwriting analyzed. She takes it to a handwriting
analyst and he says that he thinks the will is a forgery. Maeve goes looking
for the two men that signed the will and she finds that one of them is dead and
the other one is dead also but that there is no way he could have signed the
will because he was comatose and under hospice care when the will was supposed
to be signed. The analyst later tells Maeve that the will isn’t dated and that
causes it not to be valid.
Maeve goes back to work at the truck and learns that Land is
leaving to go work on the competition’s truck. One morning before she opens the
truck her truck starts getting peppered with bullets and she hides under the
sink to keep herself safe. She texts Land and tells him what is happening and
to come. He comes and the shooter flees. Land tries to enter the truck through
the door but he can’t get in because it is barred from the inside. He tries to
go in the window and Maeve hits him in the head with a skillet. They give their statements to the police and
Maeve’s truck is impounded to be examined. So Maeve goes to help Land out on
the competition’s truck by washing his dishes after he closes for the day. She
is really just trying to pump him for information.
Maeve finds a secret compartment in her food truck and finds
hidden jewels that were hidden when the truck was being used in robberies. She
finds out her aunt was involved in the theft ring before the truck was
impounded and sold at auction. Maeve figures she will be safe to take the
jewels to the lawyer and he will get them back to their rightful owners. However,
she is in for a shock as she finds out the lawyer was a part of the theft ring.
He wanted the jewels for himself. He also had an accomplice and they knock
Maeve out and tie her up in her food truck where they start a fire to kill her.
Maeve uses some quick thinking to free herself and she gets out of the truck
about the same time help arrives. She is initially accused of arson but she
tells the detectives what happened and they go looking for the lawyer. They
find him at his mistress’s house and he confesses and rats out his accomplice
too. It turns out his accomplice was the son of the first victim murdered in
his food truck and he murdered his father to get the business for himself. With
the killer arrested Land goes back to work for Maeve.
My recommendation: If you are looking for a light read pick this one up.
1 out of 5 stars.
