AS THE WORLD CHURNS
by Tamar Myers
A fast-talking Mennonite innkeeper’s latest scheme for publicizing her inn puts her loved ones in danger.
Magdalena Yoder, a very wealthy woman, has recently married the man of her dreams. Dr. Gabriel Rosen is a talented physician with the unfortunate baggage of a yiddisha momma whose one aim in life is to entice Gabe back to the Big Apple without his wife. Magdalena’s latest brainstorm for promoting the PennDutch Inn, the first annual Hernia Holstein Competition, has lured a bevy of black and white beauties along with their highly competitive owners. The bovines relax in her barn while the owners bicker in the house. But things start to go wrong when chief judge Doc Shafor is attacked. Magdalena joins him in the hospital after she faints at his bedside, leaving Gabe to preside over the contest and raise still more hackles. Adding to Magdalena’s troubles are the recent revelation that she was adopted and the prison escape of Hernia’s ex-Chief of Police, now a convicted murderer. When Gabe and Magdalena’s foster daughter Alison disappear after the contest, Magdalena, her mother-in-law, her friend Agnes and her longtime enemy Wanda join together in a frantic search for them.
Fans of the clever, sarcastic, engaging Magdalena will doubtless find this adventure just as rollicking as all her others (Hell Hath No Curry, 2006, etc.), even if they’re hard-pressed to find much mystery.