Angie and Felicia, having had to close their restaurant in San Francisco, have moved to River Vista, Idaho, where Angie lived in high school with her grandmother after the death of her parents in Who Moved My Goat Cheese? by Lynn Cahoon. The pair plan to open a new restaurant, County Seat, that features farm-to-fork cooking. As Angie goes to the farmer’s market to see about getting food from the local growers, she encounters the man who seems to lead the local cooperative, Ian McNeil, a good-looking Scottish man with whom Angie clearly has romantic sparks. She also meets Gerald Moss, known to be a cantankerous goat farmer who specializes in goat cheese. Gerald invites Angie to visit his farm, where she meets Precious, the baby goat. So it is with shock that Angie learns the next day that Gerald has fallen off the cliff, and it was no accident.
As Angie and Felicia work to prepare opening their new restaurant, Angie can’t help but get involved in the mystery. While visiting the trail at Gerald’s farm, she comes upon Precious and ends up taking her home, adding a goat to her menagerie of a Saint Bernard puppy and a chicken who really rules the house. Angie makes a tour of the community as she seeks out both farm produce and hints to the murder.
Who Moved My Goat Cheese? was a fun book with a creative setting. It was pretty straightforward, not having all the many strands of plot which come to blend together that we see in Cahoon’s Cat Latimer series. Most cozies have a cat or dog, but this is the first I’ve read that has a pet goat, and we come to really appreciate Precious.
I was a bit disappointed in the characters of this book. Characters generally drive cozy mysteries, so their quality is important for us. We need either to fall in love with them or to love to hate them. But few characters stood out distinctively. Even Felicia doesn’t make much of an impression on the reader.
Randye Kaye performs the audio edition of this book and does an excellent job. I liked her overall performance, as well as the way she tried to make the flat characters more notable. Her timing and inflections add to the overall strength of the performance.
Who Moved My Goat Cheese? was a fun read and a good way to keep me distracted from the pain of my migraine. I had fun with the plot, and though disappointed with the characters I still had a good time listening to this book. I give it four stars.
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