MEAT THY MAKER

Magdalena Portulacca Yoder Rosen, a Conservative Mennonite woman married to a Jewish man, creates more headlines suitable for the tabloids.

Magdalena’s husband, retired doctor Gabriel Rosen, helps her run the world-famous PennDutch Inn, where guests pay extra for the pleasures of mucking out stalls and weeding gardens while eating stodgy but tasty food. Just one generation removed from the Amish Church, which her grandparents left when her grandfather decided to buy a car, the clever and sarcastic Magdalena is the murder magnet of Hernia, Pennsylvania. As mayor and town benefactor as well as innkeeper, Magdalena often works with police chief Toy Graham, whose good looks attract plenty of women even though he’s gay. Several of Magdalena’s most recent guests are in town to try to make a deal to sell the renowned sausages made by the Schmucker brothers, members of a local Amish family. Grocery store CEOs Christine Landis and Kathleen Dooley are in the hunt along with Terence Tazewell, the owner of the Guzzle ’n Gorge restaurants, which encourage excessive eating and drinking. Only the very Southern gentleman Ducky Limehouse makes it clear that he’s not a fan of sausages. Then Magdalena’s best friend, Agnes Miller, eats one of the Schmuckers’ signature products and promptly moons her nosey next-door neighbor. Her strange behavior eventually leads Magdalena to the discovery that the Schmuckers’ magic ingredient is marijuana. Shortly after Magdalena takes her guests on a tour of the Schmucker facilities, from a smelly hog farm to a slaughterhouse processing plant, Terry Tazewell is found back in the inn with his throat cut, and Magdalena joins Toy in sleuthing. She’ll need all her talents to extricate herself from a situation stickier than her favorite cinnamon buns.

Another zany but pointed look at the Amish and Mennonite lifestyle grafted onto a modest mystery.