Cast:
Rosemary, Margaret, Laura and Daisy
We started with Daisy received bad feedback on the Jolly Good Baking Show from judge Paul Riviera for serving him an underbaked pie which contained a live weasel with an eye in its mouth. However, this just turned out to be a nightmare.
So after a bit of a cosy montage of the Mavens preparing for the show we moved onto the mystery. All the mavens had somehow made it to the televised final of popular British TV programme, "The Jolly Good Baking Show" and they were working through the pie round.
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| A pear, walnut and blue cheese pie |
Daisy's Pork and Apple pie was obviously a triumph (as baking is her cosy move) but Rosemary's pumpkin pie also went down well with the judges due to the large amount of rum included. Unfortunately, Margaret's custard pie had a soggy bottom and was deemed to be a bit of a disaster even though judge Jane Leaf said the fruit preserve was delightful. Finally, Laura's fish pie was also marked down because she had missed the brief that it was meant to be a fruit pie.
Cast, crew and contestants broke for lunch but then disaster struck. Paul Riviera had been found dead in his trailer by producer Heath Hendricks . After a bit of snark about which person's pie had killed him it was determined that he had been murdered by person's unknown. Most of the crew had left the site for lunch, taking Daisy's pork and apple pie with them.
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| The suspects plus the late Paul Riviera (from the Brindlewood Bay card and dice set) |
The mavens sprung (as much as elderly ladies can) into action. Laura grabbed her medical bag as an excuse to examine the corpse. It appeared Paul had been poisoned despite also being tied up and his face covered in flour. She was then ushered from the trailer until the authorities arrived.
Margaret went to the perimeter to determine that the local police force, led by Sheriff Dalrymple had done a surprisingly competent job of keeping people out of the site, limiting the suspect list to the remains judge, two presenters, the contestant, the producer, a cameraman and Paul's wife Donna.
Rosemary went to comfort Donna, who seemed to be taking events in her stride although in need of a stiff drink of cooking sherry plus a ciggie.
Finally, Daisy went to check on the main marquee, where she found cameraman Buck setting up some establishing shots. Looking around she found that one of the electrical cables in the tent looked dangerously frayed.
She then moved off to the judge's tent but upon entering a mysterious figure attempted to push a dresser on her before fleeing the scene. Visibly shaken she was comforted by Jane Leaf who also revealed that Paul had been putting in unreasonable contract demands that was putting the future of the series in doubt.
Rosemary attempted to find more information about Paul using her phone but it ran out of charge.
Margaret had arrived at the scene of the crime with Sheriff Dalrymple. She scouted around the trailer and discovered an abandoned recipe book. It was authored by Jane and Paul but one of Paul's recipes was missing.
Heath had wandered off but was eventually found to allow Laura to view the outtake footage. He was slightly suspicious of her motives and insisted the Sheriff accompanied her. It seemed despite the perceived friendliness of the show, there was a lot of needle between various cast and crew members.
At that point is was time for the final round of the show (hey, if they won't stop cooking shows due to sexist behaviour of the hosts, why stop when one dies. Plus think of the ratings!). So the bakers prepared for the cake round.
To be continued...
